azd ai agent init failing on example agent YAML (remote and local)

[benleane83]

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Output from azd version
azd version 1.22.5 (commit f1850eb)

Describe the bug
I successfully ran azd init -t Azure-Samples/azd-ai-starter-basic to scaffold a new demo project, and ran azd ai agent init -m https://github.com/microsoft/agent-framework/blob/main/python/samples/demos/hosted_agents/agents_in_workflow/agent.yaml to init an example agent as recommended in the launch article. When using the HTTPS URL, I receive an error of:

Error: failed to run start action: downloading agent.yaml: rpc error: code = Unknown desc = failed to parse GitHub URL: could not find a valid branch in the URL path. Tried branch names from 'main' to 'main/python/samples/demos/hosted_agents/agents_in_workflow/agent.yaml'

I then tried manually downloading the file into my workspace, and re-running as azd ai agent init -m agents_in_workflow.agent.yaml. That command starts successfully and prompts for the model SKU and name, but then stalls on the 'Copying full directory for container agent' step. I left running for 5-10 mins then eventually killed the command, and when I inspected my /src folder in the workspace it seems to have fallen into a recursive loop where it created an infinite structure of /src/agents_in_workflow/src/agents_in_workflow/src/...

To Reproduce
See above - had re-tried on a fresh workspace and VS Code session but experienced the same errors.

Expected behavior
Expected the azd ai init command to download a single version of required agent files into the workspace (both from a remote URL or a local YAML file).

Environment
Version: 1.108.0-insider (user setup)
Commit: 7f08f95ad54782bd242f5536470b330282197333
Date: 2025-12-19T14:09:25.917Z
Electron: 39.2.7
ElectronBuildId: 12953945
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26220

[vhvb1989]

@benleane83 , thanks for reporting this.

azd uses gh cli to resolve the branch-name. My guess is that gh cli might be returning an error (maybe that it needs to be logged in).

Can you try running this and see that's the output?

~/.azd/bin/gh api https://api.github.com/repos/microsoft/agent-framework/branches/main

Note: This is how you would call it from a Linux terminal, for Windows, you need to call this like

C:\Users\<YOUR WINDOWS USER>\.azd\bin\gh.exe api https://api.github.com/repos/microsoft/agent-framework/branches/main

Or if you have gh cli installed in your system, you can just run gh api https://api.github.com/repos/microsoft/agent-framework/branches/main

Most likely the gh cli might be failing due to missing authentication or something.