Enable AI models for Agent Mode
Reference for the Azure resources groundcover provisions to power Agent Mode in an Azure BYOC deployment.
Agent Mode on Azure BYOC runs against Anthropic Claude models hosted on Microsoft Foundry. There are no manual setup steps for you: the groundcover team provisions everything below in your Azure subscription during BYOC setup.
What groundcover provisions
Resource group
<install-id>-foundry
East US 2, or another Foundry-supported region
Dedicated, separate from your cluster's resource group. Anthropic models on Foundry are only available in select regions, so Agent Mode infrastructure may live cross-region from your AKS cluster.
User-Assigned Managed Identity (UAMI)
agent-service-<install-id>
Your cluster's resource group
Identity the agent-service pod uses to call Foundry.
Federated identity credential
On the UAMI above
n/a
Scoped to the agent-service Kubernetes ServiceAccount. Lets the pod authenticate to Foundry via AKS workload identity, with no API key.
Microsoft Foundry account
gc-<install-id>
Same RG as above
A Cognitive Services resource of kind AIServices. This is the endpoint your pod calls for Claude inference.
Foundry project
Inside the Foundry account
n/a
Required organizational unit for Foundry deployments.
Model deployment
claude-sonnet-4-6 (50 TPM capacity)
n/a
Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.6.
Model deployment
claude-haiku-4-5 (50 TPM capacity)
n/a
Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5.
Role assignment
Azure AI User on the Foundry account, granted to the agent-service UAMI
n/a
Minimum-privilege built-in role allowing POST to /anthropic/v1/messages.
Marketplace agreement
Anthropic publisher terms on your subscription
Subscription
Required before any paid SaaS model can be deployed.
Resource provider registration
Microsoft.SaaS
Subscription
Idempotent. No effect if already registered.
Cost
You pay only for actual model inference. All the infrastructure above (the Foundry account, project, model deployments, UAMI, resource group, role assignments, and marketplace agreement) is free.
Anthropic model inference is billed pay-as-you-go on tokens. Microsoft Foundry uses Anthropic's standard API pricing for Claude models on the Marketplace.
Approximate rates at the time of writing:
Claude Sonnet 4.6
~$3
~$15
Claude Haiku 4.5
~$1
~$5
Rates may change. For current pricing, see the Azure AI Foundry pricing page.
To cap spending across your organization or specific users, see Cost Management.
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