{"id":15139,"date":"2021-06-03T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/power-platform-extension-for-vs-code\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T07:53:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T14:53:58","slug":"power-platform-extension-for-vs-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/power-platform\/blog\/power-apps\/power-platform-extension-for-vs-code\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Platform Extension for VS Code"},"content":{"rendered":"
Power Platform Extension for VS Code\u00a0<\/span> On May 25th<\/sup><\/span>, we announced the\u00a0public preview<\/strong>\u00a0of the Power Platform Extension to VS Code. This helps organizations that continue to strive bridging the “collaboration” gap between with code-first developers and citizen developers.\u00a0\u00a0This public preview is available for developers on MacOS (Intel, and M1) and on Windows10.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The challenge in collaboration between code-first and citizen developers was that when they had to collectively trouble shoot a problem, either one of them had to get out of their native environment and go into the other’s environment, and in such cases the context loses importance, and the environment becomes the focus. When such cases arise, the time to problem resolution gets longer and both the citizen developer and the code-first developer have a sub-optimal experience. To improve this collaboration experience, we now introduce the Power Platform Extension for\u00a0VSCode.\u00a0\u00a0 What is the Power Platform Extension for\u00a0VSCode\u00a0<\/span> The Power platform extension brings the Power Platform Command line interface (CLI) to work within the context of the\u00a0VSCode\u00a0Editing environment, and now code-first developers do not have get out of their developer environment while working with Power Platform artifacts. It is easy install and to start working right away.\u00a0\u00a0 Installing the Extension\u00a0<\/span> To install the extension, a developer can go to either one of the following two places.\u00a0 Installing from the URL\u00a0<\/span> When you go to above mentioned URL, you will land at web page that looks like the following.\u00a0 Figure\u00a01<\/span>: Power Platform Extension for VS Code; VS Code Marketplace page Just click on the install button and it will launch\u00a0VSCode\u00a0and proceed with the install.\u00a0 Installing from within\u00a0VSCode\u00a0<\/span> From within\u00a0VSCode, select the Extensions\u00a0view from the Activity Bar.\u00a0 In the search box, type in “Power Platform”, and this will search the Extensions marketplace and\u00a0\u00a0 Select install, and once it is installed VS code informs you that the PAC CLI is ready to be used within the Terminal window\u00a0\u00a0 Figure\u00a02<\/span>: Power Platform Extension installation To initiate the Power Platform CLI,\u00a0 go to the terminal window, and select a new terminal and the new extension is up and running\u00a0 Now type in\u00a0pac\u00a0you will see the list of command that are now available.\u00a0 What are some cool commands that are available?\u00a0<\/span> Authentication profiles\u00a0<\/span> Within VS code you can authentication profiles that allow you to either interact with the service at an administrator capacity or work with the environment directly\u00a0 Administrative commands\u00a0<\/span> These administrative commands introduced in the PAC CLI now allow developers to create, remove, backup environments as needed.\u00a0\u00a0 List of all the administration commands and then listing out all the environments that are available to the developer.\u00a0 Canvas command\u00a0<\/span> This is a new feature introduced in the Command line\u00a0interface and\u00a0allows code-first developers to\u00a0look at canvas applications and\u00a0PowerFx\u00a0functions within the\u00a0VSCode\u00a0editor. We have introduced the ability to pack and unpack\u00a0msapp\u00a0files and render them in a source code friendly way.\u00a0\u00a0 Figure\u00a03<\/span>: unpacking a canvas\u00a0application Figure\u00a04<\/span>: Canvas Application rendered in a source code friendly way Solution Commands\u00a0<\/span> You can now also initialize solutions, export, import,\u00a0publish, add license,\u00a0solution check\u00a0and many such functions directly from the PAC CLI as well.\u00a0 Package Commands\u00a0<\/span> We have now simplified the Package creation and build process. Using the PAC CLI, you can initialize a folder with the Package contents, run\u00a0msbuild\u00a0against the package content to build the package and then using the PAC CLI deploy the package. The add-reference flag allows you add multiple solutions with needing to modify any xml or mime type entries manually.\u00a0 PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) Commands\u00a0<\/span> Sometimes organizations want to have proprietary controls in their Applications, PCF allows for that. Using the command line interface, you can initialize,\u00a0and\u00a0deploy such custom controls via the CLI\u00a0
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