Fixing Copilot Studio prompts with YAML

July 21, 2025

Fixing Prompt Input Issues in Copilot Studio with YAML

If you've worked with Copilot Studio and tried reusing prompts across agents, you've likely run into a frustrating issue: your carefully designed inputs—like role, experience, and technology—disappear when the prompt is reused.

The Problem

When you add a custom prompt to an agent, the input fields often don’t carry over. This breaks the functionality and forces you to recreate prompts manually for each agent.

NoInput

The Fix

The solution lies in editing the prompt in code view and defining the inputs using YAML. Here’s what you need to include for each input:

OpenInCodeView

  • kind: Usually set to automatic task input
  • name: The display name (e.g., "Role")
  • property name: The internal name used in the tool (e.g., role)
  • shouldPromptUser: Set to false if you don’t want the user to be prompted

💡 Tip: If your property name includes spaces, Copilot Studio encodes them as _20 (e.g., job_20role). This is similar to how URLs handle spaces.

Yaml

Why It Matters

Defining inputs properly in YAML allows you to:

  • Reuse prompts across multiple agents
  • Maintain consistency in your tools
  • Avoid redundant configuration work

Final Thoughts

This small but powerful fix helps streamline your workflow in Copilot Studio. As the platform evolves, these kinds of manual tweaks may become obsolete—but for now, they’re essential for getting the most out of your custom tools.