This month’s call featured the Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code, where our duo of experts Karthig Balendran, Teams Product Manager, and Allen Snow, Teams Sr. Software Engineer, walked us through a live demo showcasing the capabilities and benefits of the toolkit. Then Emily Chen, Teams Product Manager, and Michael Aldridge, Sr Content Program Manager shared an ask for feedback from the community to enhance the MIcrosoft Teams developer experience for the Microsoft 365 Developer Program.
Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio
The Microsoft Teams Toolkit is an extension we made for Visual Studio Code (available in GA) that streamlines the Teams app development process whether you’re making a tab, bot, or messaging extension. While our demo showcased our Teams toolkit for Visual Studio Code, our toolkit for Visual Studio recently released into developer preview. You can find links to both in the ‘Resources’ section below and as please do provide feedback in the Q&A section in those respective links.
Before you get started
Prior to building your Teams app, it’s important to understand the different extensibility points available to you across the Teams UI that you can extend (tab, bots, messaging extensions). Take time to think through the specific use case and/or problem you’re trying resolve and the different ways users would interact with your app in the Teams client.
You’ll also need a developer/test environment, so if you are not already enrolled, we encourage you to sign up for our Microsoft 365 Developer Program, which provides you a free Microsoft 365 sandbox subscription that you can use to test the Teams apps that you build.
Microsoft Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code
When you start a project in the Teams Toolkit, you’ll have everything you need in one place including pre-requisites, access to documentation and a simple view across the Teams app lifecycle. You’ll have the option to select whether you’re creating a tab, bot, or messaging extension.
Karthig provided a live demo showcasing the steps to building a Teams tab app and provided a real-time snapshot into the process. The toolkit makes it easy by providing the scaffolding and components available right within the left pane in Visual Studio Code – streamlining the experience for developers. It also provides a series of validation checks so you can quickly look at your manifest file to see if there would be anything that would impact publishing.
Image of landing page
Image of Project Setup page
Image of Validation check
Microsoft Teams Features in the Microsoft 365 Developer Program
We concluded our call with a segment from Emily and Michael, who are working together to enhance the Microsoft Teams developer experience in the Microsoft 365 Developer Program. They’re seeking feedback to help guide decisions on what to include in content packs and other areas that would make the app development process more streamlined.