structured-output

title: Producing Structured Output with agents
description: Learn how to use produce structured output with an agent
zone_pivot_groups: programming-languages
author: westey-m
ms.topic: tutorial
ms.author: westey
ms.date: 09/15/2025
ms.service: agent-framework

Producing Structured Output with Agents

::: zone pivot="programming-language-csharp"

This tutorial step shows you how to produce structured output with an agent, where the agent is built on the Azure OpenAI Chat Completion service.

> [!IMPORTANT] > Not all agent types support structured output. This step uses a `ChatClientAgent`, which does support structured output.

Prerequisites

For prerequisites and installing NuGet packages, see the [Create and run a simple agent](./run-agent.md) step in this tutorial.

Create the agent with structured output

The `ChatClientAgent` is built on top of any <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.IChatClient> implementation. The `ChatClientAgent` uses the support for structured output that's provided by the underlying chat client.

When creating the agent, you have the option to provide the default <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.ChatOptions> instance to use for the underlying chat client. This `ChatOptions` instance allows you to pick a preferred <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.ChatResponseFormat>.

Various options for `ResponseFormat` are available:

• A built-in <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.ChatResponseFormat.Text?displayProperty=nameWithType> property: The response will be plain text.
• A built-in <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.ChatResponseFormat.Json?displayProperty=nameWithType> property: The response will be a JSON object without any particular schema.
• A custom <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.ChatResponseFormatJson> instance: The response will be a JSON object that conforms to a specific schema.

This example creates an agent that produces structured output in the form of a JSON object that conforms to a specific schema.

The easiest way to produce the schema is to define a type that represents the structure of the output you want from the agent, and then use the `AIJsonUtilities.CreateJsonSchema` method to create a schema from the type.

using System.Text.Json;
using System.Text.Json.Serialization;
using Microsoft.Extensions.AI;

public class PersonInfo
{
    public string? Name { get; set; }
    public int? Age { get; set; }
    public string? Occupation { get; set; }
}

JsonElement schema = AIJsonUtilities.CreateJsonSchema(typeof(PersonInfo));

You can then create a <xref:Microsoft.Extensions.AI.ChatOptions> instance that uses this schema for the response format.

using Microsoft.Extensions.AI;

ChatOptions chatOptions = new()
{
    ResponseFormat = ChatResponseFormat.ForJsonSchema(
        schema: schema,
        schemaName: "PersonInfo",
        schemaDescription: "Information about a person including their name, age, and occupation")
};

This `ChatOptions` instance can be used when creating the agent.

using System;
using Azure.AI.OpenAI;
using Azure.Identity;
using Microsoft.Agents.AI;
using OpenAI;

AIAgent agent = new AzureOpenAIClient(
    new Uri("https://<myresource>.openai.azure.com"),
    new AzureCliCredential())
        .GetChatClient("gpt-4o-mini")
        .AsAIAgent(new ChatClientAgentOptions()
        {
            Name = "HelpfulAssistant",
            Instructions = "You are a helpful assistant.",
            ChatOptions = chatOptions
        });

Now you can just run the agent with some textual information that the agent can use to fill in the structured output.

var response = await agent.RunAsync("Please provide information about John Smith, who is a 35-year-old software engineer.");

The agent response can then be deserialized into the `PersonInfo` class using the `Deserialize<T>` method on the response object.

var personInfo = response.Deserialize<PersonInfo>(JsonSerializerOptions.Web);
Console.WriteLine($"Name: {personInfo.Name}, Age: {personInfo.Age}, Occupation: {personInfo.Occupation}");

When streaming, the agent response is streamed as a series of updates, and you can only deserialize the response once all the updates have been received. You must assemble all the updates into a single response before deserializing it.

var updates = agent.RunStreamingAsync("Please provide information about John Smith, who is a 35-year-old software engineer.");
personInfo = (await updates.ToAgentResponseAsync()).Deserialize<PersonInfo>(JsonSerializerOptions.Web);

::: zone-end ::: zone pivot="programming-language-python"

This tutorial step shows you how to produce structured output with an agent, where the agent is built on the Azure OpenAI Chat Completion service.

> [!IMPORTANT] > Not all agent types support structured output. The `ChatAgent` supports structured output when used with compatible chat clients.

Prerequisites

For prerequisites and installing packages, see the [Create and run a simple agent](./run-agent.md) step in this tutorial.

Create the agent with structured output

The `ChatAgent` is built on top of any chat client implementation that supports structured output. The `ChatAgent` uses the `response_format` parameter to specify the desired output schema.

When creating or running the agent, you can provide a Pydantic model that defines the structure of the expected output.

Various response formats are supported based on the underlying chat client capabilities.

This example creates an agent that produces structured output in the form of a JSON object that conforms to a Pydantic model schema.

First, define a Pydantic model that represents the structure of the output you want from the agent:

from pydantic import BaseModel

class PersonInfo(BaseModel):
    """Information about a person."""
    name: str | None = None
    age: int | None = None
    occupation: str | None = None

Now you can create an agent using the Azure OpenAI Chat Client: