Admin Mode unlocks retrieval debugging inside Copilot. With it enabled you see exactly which vector-store chunks were returned for each turn, the instructions and context the model received, and the skill calls that fired. Per-message usage details are no longer shown on individual messages — token usage is tracked and reported at the usage and cost level instead.
In this section
- Enable Admin Mode on an agent and understand who is allowed to turn it on.
- Read a retrieval trace to diagnose wrong-answer and hallucination bugs.
- Inspect Function Skill arguments and responses when an action fails.
- Decide whether a bad answer is a knowledge problem, an instruction problem, or a skill problem.
What's inside
- 01
Retrieval trace
The chunks returned by the vector store for the turn, each with its source document, chunk index, and similarity score. If the right document is missing here, the problem is training data — not the model.
- 02
Prompt inspector
The assembled instruction set for the turn: base instructions, advanced instructions, memory, retrieved context, and conversation history.
- 03
Skill calls
Each skill invocation with its raw request payload, response body, latency, and success or error state.
- 04
Token tracking
Per-message usage details are no longer displayed on individual messages. Model usage (provider, model, reasoning effort, and reasoning mode) and token counts (input, output, reasoning, and total tokens) are tracked and reported in usage and cost reporting instead.
At a glance
| Symptom | What the trace shows | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Answer is wrong but confident | Retrieval returned unrelated chunks with low similarity. | Improve or re-chunk the source document, then re-index |
| Agent says it does not know | Retrieval returned nothing above threshold. | Add the missing document to the Train tab |
| Action never happened | Function call errored or was never invoked. | Check the function schema and instruction that triggers it |
| Off-tone or off-policy reply | Retrieval was fine; instructions did not constrain the answer. | Tighten instructions and guardrails |
| Slow replies | One skill dominates the latency breakdown. | Cache, narrow, or make that call asynchronous |
Access
Admin Mode requires Agent Admin role or higher. Editors and read-only operators cannot enable it, and traces may include raw retrieved content — treat them as sensitive.