Quickstart: Get started with Microsoft Foundry (Hub projects)

This quickstart sets up your local environment for hub-based projects, deploys a model, and builds a simple traced/evaluable chat script.

Prerequisites

• Azure subscription.
• Existing hub project (or create one). If not, consider using a Foundry project quickstart.

Set up your development environment

1. Install prerequisites (Python, Azure CLI, login).
2. Install packages:

pip install azure-ai-inference azure-identity azure-ai-projects==1.0.0b10

Different project types need distinct azure-ai-projects versions. Keep each project in its own isolated environment to avoid conflicts.

Deploy a model

1. Portal: Sign in, open hub project.
2. Model catalog: select gpt-4o-mini.
3. Use this model > accept default deployment name > Deploy.
4. After success: Open in playground to verify.

Build your chat app

Create chat.py with sample code:

from azure.ai.projects import AIProjectClient
from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential

project_connection_string = "<your-connection-string-goes-here>"

project = AIProjectClient.from_connection_string(
    conn_str=project_connection_string, credential=DefaultAzureCredential()
)

chat = project.inference.get_chat_completions_client()
response = chat.complete(
    model="gpt-4o-mini",
    messages=[
        {
            "role": "system",
            "content": "You are an AI assistant that speaks like a techno punk rocker from 2350. Be cool but not too cool. Ya dig?",
        },
        {"role": "user", "content": "Hey, can you help me with my taxes? I'm a freelancer."},
    ],
)

print(response.choices[0].message.content)

Insert your project connection string from the project Overview page (copy, replace placeholder in code).

Run:

python chat.py

Add prompt templating

Add get_chat_response using mustache template (see chat-template.py sample) then invoke with user/context messages.

Run again to view templated response.

Clean up resources

Delete deployment or project when done to avoid charges.

Next step

Related content

Quickstart: Get started with Foundry (Foundry projects).