Articles & field notes.

Build Your Own MCP Server and Wire It Into Copilot Studio

A hands-on walkthrough for building a custom Model Context Protocol server in Python, exposing it publicly, and connecting it to a Copilot Studio agent - including the wizard gotchas, dynamic tool discovery, and the DLP governance angle nobody talks about.

The Automation Canvas Is Moving: Copilot Studio Workflows vs Power Automate

Microsoft is pulling the automation canvas into Copilot Studio. One email-approval flow, built twice, exposes the real gap: the stored artefact is identical, but the new Workflows designer is UI-only in preview while the Power Automate twin imports in about 30 seconds.

The Dataverse Skills Plugin: What Microsoft Just Made Official

On July 21 Microsoft shipped a plugin that turns years of Dataverse practitioner habit into eight named skills. The headline rule, managed SDK over raw HTTP, is exactly what careful makers already did by hand. But a hands-on evaluation surfaced two fresh SDK v1.0.0 defects and one governance surprise nobody mentions: the MCP endpoint enforces a client allowlist.

Microsoft Entra Agent ID: Governing the Identity of Your AI Agents

AI agents are being built faster than governance can keep up. Microsoft Entra Agent ID gives every agent its own managed identity, bringing Conditional Access, lifecycle, and audit to nonhuman actors. Here is what is generally available, what is still preview, and a checklist for CoE leads.

SharePoint Copilot Apps: What the Community Demo Skips

The pitch says test SharePoint Copilot Apps in minutes, no code, no license. I took that literally on a development tenant and documented the real maker path. No license is true and undersold. But a chain of undocumented walls stands between clone and a running agent, and the final step everyone treats as the human-only one turns out to be redundant: the deployment already publishes the agent.

Canvas Apps Have a Code Now: Why Power Platform ALM Just Got Serious

The Canvas Apps Authoring MCP was announced as an AI feature. The real story is that Canvas Apps now have a diffable, committable code format - and that changes everything for enterprise ALM.

Power Apps in Microsoft 365 Copilot: Model-Driven Apps Meet the AI Assistant

Microsoft now lets you expose model-driven Power Apps directly inside M365 Copilot via a built-in MCP server. Here is what it means for adoption, governance, and the future of business apps.

Building an AI IT Helpdesk Agent with Copilot Studio + Dataverse

A step-by-step guide to building a zero-code, zero-flow IT helpdesk agent using Microsoft Copilot Studio, Dataverse, and GPT-4.1 - from data model to knowledge-grounded support.

Building Power Apps Generative Pages with Claude Code

A hands-on guide to building production-ready model-driven app pages using React, TypeScript, and Fluent UI V9 - powered by AI code generation and the PAC CLI.

An AI Onboarding Assistant in Under an Hour with Copilot Studio

How Microsoft Copilot Studio and SharePoint combine to create a knowledge-grounded onboarding agent that answers new hire questions instantly - with zero code.

SharePoint Quick Steps: Custom Action Buttons in Lists - Hands-On Guide

SharePoint Online now lets you add custom action buttons directly inside list views. Quick Steps can set values, draft emails, start Teams chats, or trigger Power Automate flows - all with one click. Here's a hands-on walkthrough.

Code Apps + Governance: Why IT Will Love Them

Code Apps deployed with pac code push become governed Dataverse components - with DLP, pipelines, managed environments, and security roles. Here's why IT admins should pay attention.

Agent 365: Microsoft's Control Plane for AI Agents - And Why Governance Can't Wait

Microsoft Agent 365 introduces a unified control plane for AI agents across Microsoft 365. With agents now getting their own Entra identities, a Top 10 security risks list, and two separate admin planes to coordinate - governance just became the real challenge.

Power Apps Per-App License Is Gone: What Teams Need to Do Now

Microsoft quietly retired the $5/user/app Power Apps Per-App plan on January 2, 2026. No blog post, no email - just a line removed from a PDF. Here's what changed, who's affected, and how to choose between Premium and Pay-As-You-Go.

Code Apps Are GA: What It Actually Changes for Power Platform Teams

Code Apps hit General Availability on February 5, 2026. Beyond the announcement - what changed, what broke, and why this reshapes how teams build on Power Platform.

Getting Started with Code Apps: Build an Interactive Dashboard

A step-by-step tutorial to build and deploy an interactive KPI dashboard as a Power Apps Code App with React, TypeScript, and Recharts.

Code Apps in Production: CSP, ALM, and Hard-Won Lessons

What you need to know before shipping a Code App to production - Content Security Policy, deployment pipelines, Dataverse quirks, and a pre-deploy checklist.

What Are Code Apps? The Third Type of Power App

Power Apps Code Apps are now GA. Here's what they are, how they compare to Canvas and Model-Driven apps, and why they matter for pro developers.

The 5 Delegation Mistakes Killing Your Power App

Delegation errors silently break Power Apps at scale. Learn the 5 most common mistakes and proven workarounds to fix them.

CoE Starter Kit: What They Don't Tell You

The CoE Starter Kit promises instant governance. Reality is messier. Field-tested lessons from enterprise deployments.

VNet Data Gateway: The Complete Debug Guide

Step-by-step troubleshooting for VNet Data Gateway failures. Covers network config, DNS, auth, logs, and common errors.

The Complete Guide to Power Apps Code Apps

Everything you need to know about Code Apps: architecture, development workflow, deployment, and production patterns for the newest Power Apps application type.

Code Apps Setup Tutorial: From Zero to Your First Deployed App

A complete walkthrough for setting up every tool and configuring every prerequisite needed to create, test locally, and deploy a Power Apps Code App.

Build an Onboarding Copilot with Copilot Studio and SharePoint

A hands-on tutorial to build an AI-powered onboarding assistant using Microsoft Copilot Studio, SharePoint knowledge sources, and generative answers - from zero to a working POC in under an hour.

Build a Full CRUD Code App: The IceCream Tutorial

A hands-on tutorial to build a complete Power Apps Code App with Dataverse CRUD, a sales dashboard with charts, and a custom Fluent UI theme - from Dataverse tables to deployment.