🎯 Orchestrator
The Orchestrator is the core engine of GPT-RAG, an agentic orchestration layer built on the Microsoft Agent Framework and Azure AI Foundry Agent Service. It coordinates agent-based RAG workflows — each agent has a defined role — to generate accurate, context-aware responses for complex user queries. GitHub Repository.
Key Features
- Strategy-Based Architecture: Pluggable orchestration strategies selected via Azure App Configuration (
AGENT_STRATEGY). - Context Retrieval: Intelligent retrieval from Azure AI Search with citation support.
- Microsoft Agent Framework: Built on the Microsoft Agent Framework.
- Conversation Persistence: Maintains conversation history in Cosmos DB with real-time SSE streaming.
- Extensible Design: Easy to add new strategies by extending
BaseAgentStrategy.
Available Strategies
The Orchestrator supports multiple strategies. The active strategy is set via the AGENT_STRATEGY key in Azure App Configuration. The default is maf_lite.
| Key | Strategy | Description |
|---|---|---|
maf_lite |
MAF Lite (default) | Microsoft Agent Framework with direct Azure OpenAI model access. Lightweight — no Agent Service dependency. Includes user profile memory and optional agentic search. |
maf_agent_service |
MAF + Agent Service | Microsoft Agent Framework with Azure AI Foundry Agent Service for server-side thread management and tool orchestration. Includes user profile memory and optional agentic search. |
single_agent_rag |
Single Agent RAG | Uses Azure AI Agents SDK with Agent Service for agentic RAG. Supports dynamic routing, streaming via event handlers, and pre-warming for low-latency first responses. |
mcp |
MCP | Model Context Protocol strategy using Semantic Kernel. Connects to an MCP server for tool orchestration and passes user context via HTTP headers. |
nl2sql |
NL2SQL | Natural language to SQL translation using a multi-agent pipeline (Triage → SQL Query → Synthesizer) with Semantic Kernel and Agent Service. |
Visual Guide
New to the Orchestrator? Check out the Orchestrator Visual Guide for a visual walkthrough of the architecture and key components.