[Rodrigo Brandão (rodrigobr-msft)]

Summary

Introduces a reusable, dictionary-backed Configuration API in microsoft_agents.activity.config, with shared lookup, conversion, binding, and logging infrastructure. The existing load_configuration_from_env() return contract is retained.

Changes

• Add ::-separated paths, ordered alternative keys, path()/xpath() helpers, nested sections, and matched source paths in diagnostics.
• Add typed boolean, integer, float, and string getters; nullable convenience getters; string-list and scope parsing; and wildcard collection helpers.
• Add mapping/default resolution utilities that support nested and flattened paths, __ environment-variable separators, and indexed-mapping conversion to lists.
• Add configuration protocols and configurable-object base classes for constructing settings from mappings or configuration sections.
• Split logging into dedicated configuration, loading, constants, and color-formatting modules. Accept LOGLEVEL, LOG_LEVEL, and log_level aliases.
• Preserve legacy coercion wrappers, including boolean fallback behavior, while keeping input values out of the revised conversion error messages.
• Add configuration, binding, logging, resolution, and coercion tests, and explicitly set the pytest-asyncio fixture loop scope to function.

Compatibility and scope

• Configuration is a dict subclass. Construction is shallow, so nested mutable values can remain shared.
• Default resolution skips empty lists and rejects conflicting scalar/section paths.
• The legacy environment loader still returns AGENTAPPLICATION, CONNECTIONS, and CONNECTIONSMAP; this PR does not migrate existing SDK consumers to the new API.
• The PR also removes existing ChannelId.includes() test cases without changing the ChannelId implementation.

Validation

• Copilot ran the four new configuration test files and the existing coercion test file against commit e26101e on Python 3.12.10: 241 passed.
• An additional smoke check verified the legacy environment loader's empty-input return contract.
• GitHub checks are green, including the Python 3.10-3.14 build jobs, analysis checks, and CLA check.
• Additional local loader/channel tests could not collect because the local environment lacks the hosting package's OpenTelemetry dependency; the full repository suite was not run locally.

_{Description prepared by Copilot from the PR changes and observed validation results.}

[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

Configuration resolution can mutate nested caller-owned settings, and logging validation rejects valid read-only mappings.

No open issues 🎉

1 resolved since last review

• Generate consistent casing variants for nested XPath paths

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

Configuration resolution mutates nested caller-owned inputs, including defaults, and logging configuration rejects valid read-only mappings.

No open issues 🎉

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[tracyboehrer (tracyboehrer)]

Copilot reproduced both issues below against the unchanged PR head, e26101ea05294c80e4bb05be525f2e91f52f713e. The earlier review threads are resolved, but these behaviors remain reproducible.

Medium: Default resolution mutates nested caller-owned settings

Location: libraries/microsoft-agents-activity/microsoft_agents/activity/config/_utils.py:317.

The shallow list copy retains references to nested containers. During configuration construction, _convert_lists(resolved) then normalizes those shared containers in place, changing the caller's primary settings or defaults before construction returns.

from microsoft_agents.activity.config import Configuration

source = {"Entries": [{"Scopes": {"0": "read"}}]}
Configuration.from_mapping(source, Unrelated=True)

assert source["Entries"][0]["Scopes"] == {"0": "read"}

The assertion fails: source["Entries"][0]["Scopes"] has become ["read"]. Starting with a fresh source, Configuration.from_mapping({"Unrelated": True}, **source) also mutates the caller-owned defaults.

This is not only the documented sharing of nested values after shallow construction: binding itself changes the input. Copy the nested containers that normalization traverses, including containers inside lists, before converting them.

Medium: Logging validation rejects read-only mappings

Location: libraries/microsoft-agents-activity/microsoft_agents/activity/config/_logging/_logging_configuration.py:46.

Configuration binding accepts Mapping inputs and preserves nested mappings, but this validation requires a concrete dict. A read-only log-level mapping therefore raises ValueError during configuration loading, although the previous logging implementation could iterate it.

from types import MappingProxyType
from microsoft_agents.activity.config import load_configuration_from_env

load_configuration_from_env({
    "LOGGING__LOGLEVEL": MappingProxyType({"default": "DEBUG"})
})

Expected: configure the default logger at DEBUG. Actual: ValueError. The same rejection occurs through _LoggingConfiguration.from_mapping({"LOGLEVEL": ...}).

Validate against Mapping rather than dict, retaining rejection of non-mapping values.