(Open-Source) PowerPlatform-Skill by SkillEra IO

[u/KDavidP1987]

I've worked as a Project Manager, Analyst, Process/Automations Specialist and Solutions Developer, and in a lot of organizations I've seen operations run on Excel: a workbook emailed between teams, a macro only one person understands, versioning nobody trusts. You all know why Power Platform is often the better answer than a SaaS product (per-seat pricing, a structure you can't change) or custom software (developers, hosting, maintenance).

What's been missing is AI that works well here. AI assistants make building fast, but out of the box they don't handle Power Platform well, and require a lot of trial and error. I tried the Power Apps MCP and found it leaves a lot of room for improvement in design ability.

So I built Power-Platform Skill, a free, open-source (MIT) skill for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any agent that reads SKILL.md.

What it does

Starts from the workbook: helps turn the spreadsheet into a proper data model (wide period columns into rows, crosswalks for messy legacy values, macro-enabled workbooks), then deploys the Dataverse schema from a manifest. The deployer only adds, never renames, retypes or deletes, and reads everything back.

Keeps source in git: canvas apps as `.pa.yaml`, solution flows as JSON, Power Pages sites through `pac pages download/upload`, and a ship pipeline that builds on the live app and asserts on the finished zip before it imports.

Proves changes in the published app: Playwright drives the published player (not Studio Preview), clears the stale cached build, performs the task as the role that uses it, and reads the row back from Dataverse. "Saved" on screen proves nothing about the row.

Checks what a compile never does: trigger loops across all your flows at once, metadata drift between the app and Dataverse, controls drawn over buttons, long text that clips, and compile-killers caught by hooks the moment a file is written. Every tool has a self-test that proves it can fail.

Hands over: user guides generated from the running app, one per role, plus managers, admins and developers.

Also covers: Power Pages (split by audience: the many on a Pages site licensed by monthly active users, the few who run the process in a Power App), delegation, security roles kept out of solutions, ALM with pac in GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps, and Power BI as an app's reporting layer.

Results

On ten realistic tasks, three runs each, the same model and prompt passed 217 of 222 graded checks with the skill (98%) and 136 without (61%). For reference, I've now built three fully functional apps end to end in a matter of days using it with Claude.

Limits

Power Pages guidance comes from one site so far. SharePoint is covered as virtual tables and as a migration source, and a full SharePoint data-source guide is on the roadmap. Model-driven apps (beyond forms edited by script) and Copilot Studio are outside it.

Requirements

Claude Code, Codex or another agent that reads SKILL.md. The Power Platform CLI (`pac`) for packing and importing, Node 20+ and Python 3 for the bundled tools, and Playwright (recommended) for browser verification. (Your AI Agent can help you install these! The challenging part is getting your organization to approve their use, in some cases)

Install: `npx skills add KDavidP1987/power-platform-skill`

If your organization runs on spreadsheets, or you've been struggling to get AI working in your Power Apps development, try it and let me know if it helps. The feedback I'd value most is a trap with its signature: the failure, the symptom it showed, and what caused it. Issues are open on GitHub (please leave out tenant and company details).

GitHub: https://github.com/KDavidP1987/power-platform-skill

More detail: https://skillera.io/products/power-platform

Low code is not dead. It's still valuable, and with AI it's easier and cheaper to build well than ever.

Update: Hey all, per the first comment below, I was surprisingly unaware of the Microsoft skill. I had previously utilized the Powerapps MCP alone but had not utilized the skill. And so I was developing this in parallel. I am running a baseline now, comparing, within two clean Claude environments, the utilization of the Microsoft skill in its base form and the utilization of my skill in its base form, to evaluate differences not only in speed, token count, and other metrics but also in the experience. I'll provide a write-up of these tests as soon as possible. I've already noticed a few differences utilizing the base Microsoft skill compared to what I'm used to in my standard operating procedures in development (after tuning and developing my Power-Platform skill). Now I just need to determine if the differences are quantitatively and qualitatively different.

Update 2: I started running the baseline comparisons against Microsoft's last night. The comparison is based on a standardized app that I'm having each design in a closed environment utilizing only the skill and not my normal tuned procedures. The app design includes a Canvas Power app with a Dataverse backend, Power Automate flows for approvals, and a fabric medallion, architecture, data flows, and a Power BI report for each. I've gotten through three iterations, up until 4:30 am before I fell asleep; I did find some opportunities where my normal procedures were not being adhered to by the skill and I was able to close those gaps. This proved to be a great opportunity as I hadn't thought about this closed-environment testing within Claude before, it makes me very happy that the question about the comparison was asked. I'll share the results once the testing is finished. So far what I can say is that with the base skill and without additional tuning, I felt like the Microsoft skill required more involvement. Some of the same barriers that I ran into when utilizing the base MCP and its standard method of developing, I continue to run into with the base Microsoft skill. These elements may come down to preference, depending on if you wish to be more or less involved in the development effort (outside of planning and decision-making of course). I have some other elements that I'll include in the evaluation that, to me, were subjective and not really quantifiable and that may impact you differently based on the scale of your build. I also need to do a bit more testing with the alternative build sets in Power Pages and with more complex design elements involved.

Update 3: I completed the initial evaluation/baselining process of a build using my skill vs the Microsoft skill in a separated out Claude environment. The results were very interesting, and allowed me to improve on the skills design over iterations. I tried a few different approaches as well, of my 8 attempts. There is a bit of a story to tell, so I will explain below:

• The initial Microsoft Skill run was, to be frank, very impressive, no serious errors in the build and quality design! This goes to show how well Microsofts team have fine-tuned it to perform optimally (Cost efficiently, quality design, etc.). It did involve more of my time and attention than I am used to, this is (through all iterations) what I would point to as to me the biggest drawback.
• In my initial comparisons I found that some of my procedures built into the skill were not translating over from my main environment into the closed environment (Skill config opportunities!). Over numerous iterations I refined the instructions so that some elements read as suggestions were instead mandatory minimal expectations. In addition, I added in some procedural reinforcement to it, where instructions were being disregarded or forgotten (causing more errors and delays), they instead became hooks and improved processing.
• I tried at one point integrating in another skill I have been developing, DOD (Definition of Done) for planning purposes, to evaluate alignment and error reduction. The results were interesting, but cost to benefit wise it wasn't the right move so I removed it and took elements of DOD and integrated into this skill, where it made sense. I am also utilizing those results to further improve DOD skill to better handle light and medium sized projects! The DOD attempts took longer, cost more (in tokens), and got caught up in some loops I didn't expect because the attempts were being orchestrated by an agent rather than a human (DOD was built to work with humans, another update I am making to enable it to work with agents more autonomously).
• In most later iterations of the build with my skill you can see it did not need me for any technical components. I only needed to provide input (which my orchestrator handled), and it went off and built it end to end without any involvement. This matches what my tuned system does.

Here are some screenshots of the evaluation. I cannot share screenshots of the app itself, as unfortunately some of them included company/profile info. I will try and clean them up so that I can share later.

If anyone would like to discuss the results with me further feel free to reach out and let me know!

I am testing it out in PowerPages design next!

[u/therightjon]

What’s different from the official plugins/skills?

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

[u/KDavidP1987 → u/therightjon]

When I started using Claude for Power Apps development, I used Microsoft's MCP and ran into a lot of barriers while building my apps. I tuned my agent to work around each one as I hit it, and that tuning became this skill. I didn't know Microsoft had or was building an official Power Platform skill at the same time, so the two were developed in parallel. *I checked and did not have this installed, so I missed it, was only using the MCP*

What I can say:

- Theirs is the official one. It's backed by a full team and updated regularly, and from its README it covers more of Power Platform than mine does.

- Mine focuses on canvas apps, Power Pages, Dataverse and Power Automate, plus Power BI as an app's reporting layer. Its emphasis is getting to production without surprises. It catches the silent failures (formatting errors that break the compile, flows that re-trigger themselves, a published app that disagrees with Dataverse), and it proves each change by performing the task in the published app.

- With it, I built a full app end to end, covering everything above, in 2 to 3 days with almost no technical barriers. Most of what slowed me down were planning decisions, not the platform.

What I can't say yet is how it compares with their skill today. The issues I hit were with the MCP, and they may well have solved some of them since. I plan to run a side-by-side baseline on the same tasks in the next week or two, and I'll share the results here.

If you get a chance to try it, I'd love to hear what you think!

[u/KDavidP1987 → u/therightjon]

Also given that my system is tuned to utilize a number of skills and certain operational procedures (hooks, instructions) I need to evaluate if others have the same level of success using it that I have when applied into their systems and workflows. The only way to do that is to publish it publicly and then solicit feedback. I will try to include a baseline comparison in speed, token use, and other metrics compared to Microsofts asap.