Teams Adaptive Card Form Designer for Runbook Inputs Prompt

You are a senior platform engineer who has built Adaptive Card forms for runbook inputs that deliver clean UX in Teams without the Power Apps tax.

I will provide:
- Runbook input fields needed
- Bot service architecture (Bot Framework + Web API)
- Validation requirements
- Multi-step flow needs (wizard)
- Card design goals (compact / verbose, branded)

Your job:

1. **Adaptive Cards vs Power Apps for forms**:
   - **Adaptive Cards** — lightweight, no Power Apps licensing, full control via Card JSON; mature in Teams
   - **Power Apps** — richer, but premium licensing, slower iteration, dependency on Power Platform
   - Recommend AC for: simple-to-medium forms, embedded in chat, fast iteration
   - Recommend Power Apps for: complex UIs (tables, file picker, advanced data binding) — see [Power Apps tab for Runbook](../teams-tab-power-apps-runbook/)

2. **Card structure principles**:
   - Container per logical group
   - One ColumnSet for compact two-field rows
   - Action.Submit / Action.Execute on the primary action
   - Inputs with `id`, `label`, `placeholder`, `errorMessage`

3. **Input types and when to use**:
   - **Input.Text** — short string; with `regex` for validation
   - **Input.Text** (multiline=true) — paragraph
   - **Input.Number** — typed number with min/max
   - **Input.Date** / **Input.Time** — for scheduling
   - **Input.Toggle** — boolean
   - **Input.ChoiceSet** — dropdown (mode=compact) or radio (expanded=true) or multi-select (isMultiSelect=true)

4. **Validation patterns**:
   - **Required** — `"isRequired": true, "errorMessage": "..."`
   - **Regex** — for format (e.g. email, kubernetes resource name)
   - **Server-side fallback** — bot validates after submit; returns error card if invalid
   - **Inline error** — AC 1.3+ supports inline error messages on inputs

5. **Conditional visibility** (AC 1.4+) using `isVisible`:
   - Hide fields until a related input is selected
   - Example: "Environment" dropdown → show "Cluster name" only if env = "kubernetes"
   - Use `Action.ToggleVisibility` for show/hide chain

6. **Multi-step wizard** — two patterns:
   - **Single card with sections shown/hidden** — works for 2-3 steps; messy for more
   - **Multiple cards, replace on next** — cleanest; use `Action.Execute` to fetch the next card from the bot; bot tracks state per user

7. **Action.Execute vs Action.Submit**:
   - **Action.Submit** — older; works in all clients; bot gets a message-style submit
   - **Action.Execute** (AC 1.4+, Universal Actions) — modern; bot returns a card refresh; better for state machines
   - Recommend Action.Execute for new bots in Teams

8. **Refresh patterns** with Action.Execute:
   - Card refreshes in place after action
   - State updates visible to the same user across devices
   - For multi-user collaboration (one approves another), use `refresh.userIds` to limit
   - Avoid excessive refresh (each is a server round-trip)

9. **Common pitfalls**:
   - Hardcoded color values (not respecting theme)
   - Missing `errorMessage` on required fields (poor UX)
   - Form too long without sectioning
   - Submit button without disabled state during processing
   - Not handling MAX size (cards have a 28KB limit)
   - Missing fallback content for older Teams versions

10. **Testing**:
   - Adaptive Card Designer (adaptivecards.io/designer) — pre-test layouts
   - Bot Framework Emulator for action handling
   - Test in Teams desktop, web, iOS, Android (rendering varies)

11. **Accessibility**:
   - All inputs have `label` (not just `placeholder`)
   - Alt text on images
   - Sufficient color contrast
   - Logical tab order (default in AC)

Output as: (a) form structure pattern for one runbook (3-5 fields), (b) full Adaptive Card JSON with validation, (c) conditional visibility example, (d) multi-step wizard pattern using Action.Execute, (e) submit + refresh state machine, (f) testing matrix, (g) accessibility checklist.

Bias toward: server-side validation as the source of truth, Action.Execute for new builds, accessibility from day 1, test in all Teams clients.