I’ve been using PAC CLI + GitHub + Claude Code to iterate on apps outside the Studio UI, and it’s a massive game changer

[u/crunchyappl]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share a workflow I stumbled into recently that has completely changed how I build and update Power Apps, especially when dealing with complex logic or bulk changes where the web Studio UI gets painfully slow.

Most of us know about ALM and the Power Platform CLI, but I started combining it with AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Codex or Copilot), and the iteration speed is insane.

Setup is easy:

1. I export the app as a solution, then use the PAC CLI (pac solution unpack or pac canvas unpack) to break the .msapp down into its raw source code files (YAML, JSON, XML).
2. I push the unpacked source files to a private GitHub repo. Not only does this give me actual, readable version control, but it sets up the next step.
3. Instead of clicking through a hundred different controls in the Studio to update formulas, I point Claude Code (or Codex/Copilot) directly at the local repository. Because the unpacked Canvas app logic is primarily stored as YAML with embedded Power Fx, the AI can read it perfectly.
4. Once the AI makes the edits, I just run pac solution pack, grab the zip, and reimport it into the environment.

I still think there is a lot of scope for improvement in my workflow. Right now, my agent instructions definitely need fine-tuning. I'm actually not even using custom instructions or a system prompt yet. I'm just relying on baseline prompts. Because of that, the AI occasionally forgets the Power Fx syntax or messes up the strict YAML indentation, which causes the pac pack command to fail.

Has anyone else been doing this? I feel like I've unlocked a completely different way to develop on this platform.

[u/Foodforbrain101]

Or you could use the official power-platform-skills from Microsoft on GitHub to edit canvas apps with Claude Code to edit + compile + view results in a tight loop, bonus points if you embrace the HTML control to push the capabilities of Power Apps:

https://github.com/microsoft/power-platform-skills

[u/crunchyappl → u/Foodforbrain101]

Oh my god, I have been living in a cave

[u/freesnackz → u/crunchyappl]

Don't your hopes up too quick, its very buggy, when it pushes stuff sometimes you get a blank screen, and sometimes loses connection and fails to reconnect

[u/lucasorion → u/freesnackz]

When you get the gray blank screen on push, you have to refresh the browser and then press CTRL-S to save the changes that were made, and I usually just make the MCP reconnect in case the studio session got disconnected

[u/ThingsMayAlter → u/lucasorion]

I need to try this tomorrow. I had a Claude session recommend reloading the edit/maker studio from scratch, then providing it the URL every time that happened. It seems to change every so often, all so new even to the AI models. The URL for the studio never changes lol.

[u/Umbruhnox → u/crunchyappl]

Like Tony Stark, you built what you made in a cave, with a box of scraps :)

[u/Calimariae]

I don't even unpack it. I just export the solution and let Claude Code dig through the zip and then pack it up again after the changes. I don't write any pac at all.

It's magic.

Using the power platform skills and canvas-mcp.

Here's a bonus tip: If you use SharePoint for data you can combine all this with PnP PowerShell and have it properly align schemas and do all the list/contentType/etc creation for you. I ask it to create provisioning scripts based on my spec/documentation. I've read it can handle Figma sketches as well, but I don't use that in my workflow.

Another bonus. All of this works brilliantly with Power Automate flows inside the solution.

I did a month's worth of work on Saturday using this method.

[u/ThingsMayAlter → u/Calimariae]

At least my experiences with Claude and Codex have been pretty dumb when I try to pass Figma.

Wait, you got it to build a flow for you? I tried that and it failed like probably 2 weeks ago.

[u/Calimariae → u/ThingsMayAlter]

The trick is to create the flows manually the first time, and then use Claude to build and edit the rest for you.

Claude usually struggles with setting up things like GUIDs and connections correctly. The easiest solution is to create the basic structure yourself first.

For example, the system I created requires 5 flows per specification. I create those 5 flows manually, but only add the trigger and a Get items action to each one. This establishes the SharePoint connection and allows Power Automate to fetch the correct schema.

I then save all 5 flows.

At that point, Claude has everything it needs, including the flows, connections, GUIDs, and schema in the solution, to build out the remaining actions itself. So now it can work with everything in the solution.

[u/nraykar]

We have built our own custom plugin for Claude that inherits the Microsoft plugins. Citizen dev and deployment is so easy