Why should you care?

Kernel already knows plugins — orchestration layers add tenant policy, telemetry, and human gates around InvokeAsync.

See it live — copy this example

Paste into an ASP.NET Core 8+ / AgentNest project, then run with dotnet run (set your API keys in user-secrets).

// AgentNest.Orchestration/KernelPlaybookRunner.cs
public sealed class KernelPlaybookRunner(Kernel kernel, ILogger<KernelPlaybookRunner> log)
{
    public async Task RunCrmPlaybookAsync(Guid dealId, CancellationToken ct)
    {
        var enrich = kernel.Plugins["crm"]["EnrichDeal"];
        var draft = kernel.CreateFunctionFromPrompt("Draft email for deal {{$dealId}}");
        await kernel.InvokeAsync(enrich, new() { ["dealId"] = dealId.ToString() }, cancellationToken: ct);
        var email = await kernel.InvokeAsync(draft, new() { ["dealId"] = dealId.ToString() }, cancellationToken: ct);
        log.LogInformation("Playbook complete for {DealId}", dealId);
    }
}

What happened?

• KernelPlaybookRunner chains a plugin function and a prompt function sequentially with structured logging.
• Follow the steps below — typing the code yourself is the fastest way to learn.

Practice next

1. Register kernel with crm plugin in DI.
2. Define playbooks as explicit runner methods for regulated flows.
3. Pass CancellationToken into every InvokeAsync.
4. Persist playbook state after enrich step for crash recovery.
5. Return structured PlaybookResult DTO instead of void.

Remember

Orchestrate SK with explicit playbook runners for CRM/ERP. Chain InvokeAsync calls with logging and cancellation. Reserve planners for exploratory analytics only.

CRM playbook button

SDR clicks Enrich + Draft on a stalled opportunity.

Outcome: KernelPlaybookRunner runs two kernel steps with full telemetry in one API call.