Tip
Until now, declarative agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot were great at reading and answering — but taking action on your mailbox or calendar meant wiring up API plugins. With declarative agent manifest schema version 1.8 (July 2026), two new built-in capabilities change that: EmailActions and MeetingActions. Your agent can now triage mail and schedule meetings without custom plumbing.
What’s new in manifest 1.8
Schema 1.8 adds two capabilities on top of version 1.7:
| Capability | What it enables |
|---|---|
EmailActions | Write operations on email — triage, supervised send, delete, inbox rules, auto-reply, and folder management |
MeetingActions | Meeting and calendar actions — scheduling events, creating time-finding polls, and surfacing time insights |
Two smaller additions also landed this cycle:
- A
fileproperty on the worker agent object, as an alternative toid, so you can reference worker agents by file path. - An
embedded_resource_snapshot_idproperty on the embedded knowledge object.
Adding the capabilities
Declarative agent capabilities are declared in the capabilities array of the manifest. Conceptually, enabling the new ones looks like this:
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{
"$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/copilot/declarative-agent/v1.8/schema.json",
"version": "1.8",
"name": "Inbox & Calendar Assistant",
"description": "Helps triage email and schedule meetings.",
"instructions": "You help the user keep their inbox tidy and set up meetings.",
"capabilities": [
{ "name": "EmailActions" },
{ "name": "MeetingActions" }
]
}
Always confirm the exact object shape for each capability against the official schema before you build — the manifest reference and JSON Schema links are below.
Why this is useful
- Fewer moving parts — common inbox/calendar actions are built in, so you don’t need a custom API plugin for everyday scenarios.
- Supervised send — the agent can draft and send with the user in the loop, which is the right default for anything that leaves your mailbox.
- Real assistant behaviour — time-finding polls and scheduling turn a Q&A agent into something that actually books the meeting.
Before you ship
- Set your manifest
versionto1.8and point$schemaat the v1.8 schema. - Review each capability’s exact properties in the manifest reference.
- Remember that write actions on email and calendar deserve careful testing — start with supervised flows.
References
Image Prompt
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Clean flat 2D digital graphic, wide banner 16:9 aspect ratio.
Scene: a friendly robot assistant at the centre with two action panels beside it — an email envelope with triage arrows and an inbox rule, and a calendar with a scheduled event and a time-poll. Front-on view, simple geometric shapes.
Colour palette: soft blue (#4C8DFF), warm amber (#FFB454), on a dark charcoal background (#1E2128).
Style: minimal modern flat design, smooth solid colour shapes, crisp geometric edges, no outlines, no gradients, no shadows, no 3D, no hand-drawn or sketchy look.
Mood: helpful, capable, modern.
No text. No logos.