In this episode, Andrew and Julie dive into the latest updates to the declarative agent developer experience in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Andrew walks through what's shipped since Ignite 2025 — including the GA of MCP apps support (which lets agents respond with interactive UI widgets instead of just text), embedded knowledge that packages up to 20 files directly into an agent, and the new AI coding assistant skills under the Work IQ banner that help Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, and Codex better understand declarative agent projects. Along the way, they swap stories about using Claude Code to modernize an older SharePoint Framework session, weigh in on where MCP apps could take line-of-business solutions, and share picks covering the Artemis II mission and the 2026 World Nature Photography Awards.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================

🔗 Webinar: Supercharge Your Microsoft 365 Dev Workflow with Claude Code (May 21, 2026)
🔗 Webinar: Microsoft 365 Copilot Developer's Guide to Declarative Agents (April 15, 2026)
🔗 Workshop: Build Declarative Agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot
🔗 What's New for Microsoft 365 Copilot Declarative Agents — April 2026

🎁 Picks
=================================================

Andrew's Pick(s)
🔗 NASA: Moon Base Architecture User's Guide (PDF)
🔗 Hank Green: Explaining the Most Important Artemis II Photos

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 2026 World Nature Photography Awards Winners (Popular Science)
🔗 World Nature Photography Awards — Official Store

📚 CHAPTERS
=================================================

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (00:34) - Conference prep & upcoming events
• (02:10) - Julie's Claude Code win modernizing an SPFx session
• (05:43) - Andrew's Teams walkie-talkie sync solution
• (06:26) - Artemis II mission excitement
• (07:26) - DECLARATIVE AGENTS: DEV EXPERIENCE UPDATES
• (08:36) - Baseline: what shipped at Ignite 2025
• (11:09) - MCP Apps support goes GA
• (22:19) - Embedded knowledge for agents
• (29:48) - AI coding assistant skills (Work IQ)
• (38:52) - AC'S & JULIE'S PICKS

🎙️ PODCAST
🔗 https://codedeploygo.live, LinkedIn, Bluesky

🎙️ HOSTS
Julie Turner
Andrew Connell: LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky, Newsletter

SPONSORS
Sympraxis (by Julie Turner) 🔗 Ask Sympraxis 🔗 YouTube
Voitanos (by Andrew Connell) 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Bluesky

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

In this episode, Andrew and Julie dive deep into the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit (ATK) version 6.6.0 release, exploring the latest features and changes for building declarative agents. Andrew walks through the new embedded knowledge functionality that allows developers to include knowledge directly within agents without requiring separate SharePoint uploads, and he shares insights on improvements to actions and plugins. The conversation also covers significant template changes in the toolkit, including what was removed and what's new, along with some frustrations about missed opportunities in how Microsoft is presenting this powerful toolkit to developers.

Andrew reflects on why the embedded knowledge feature is such a game-changer for agent development, discusses the practical implications of template changes on developer learning and onboarding, and explores the broader ecosystem of plugins and skills that are enabling more sophisticated agent deployments.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================

AC's Webinars:

🔗 Microsoft 365 Copilot - Evaluate Your Agent Options

🔗 Microsoft 365 Copilot - Developer's Guide to Declarative Agents

🔗 Microsoft 365 AI-Assisted Development

SharePoint Framework Issues:

🔗 debugManifest stopped working today

🔗 SPFx Application Customizers getting "wrong" top placeholder in production

🔗 SPFx Field & ListForm Customizers not loading from local dev

AC's Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit (ATK) v6.6 review

🔗 Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit v6.6.0 Release Review

🎁 Picks
=================================================

Andrew's Pick(s)
🔗 Skills.sh

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 The Infinite Game, by Simon Sinek

🎙️ PODCAST
🔗 https://codedeploygo.live, LinkedIn, Bluesky

🎙️ HOSTS
Julie Turner
Andrew Connell: LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky, Newsletter

SPONSORS
Sympraxis (by Julie Turner) 🔗 Ask Sympraxis 🔗 YouTube
Voitanos (by Andrew Connell) 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Bluesky

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

In this episode of the Microsoft 365 Dev Podcast, Julie and Andrew dive into the results of the 2025 State of JavaScript survey, sharing their take on the trends, tools, and libraries shaping the JavaScript ecosystem. They discuss why the survey is so valuable for developers, from discovering new language features to tracking the rise and fall of popular libraries. The conversation covers the dominance of Vite as the most loved library, React's continued strong usage despite growing pain points, the steady decline of Webpack sentiment, and the emergence of tools like Rolldown (a Rust-based bundler from the Vite team) and Hono (a backend framework with sky-high satisfaction ratings).

Beyond libraries, Julie and Andrew explore front-end framework trends, noting that the era of constantly jumping between frameworks seems to be over, with the average developer using just 2.6 frameworks across their career. They also touch on testing tools (including Vitest's rapid rise alongside Jest's declining satisfaction), the state of AI coding tools in the survey results, mono repo tooling, and some interesting community picks like Observable Framework for building dashboards. Whether you're a seasoned JavaScript developer or working in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, this episode offers a great pulse check on where the industry is heading.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================
🔗 State of JavaScript Survey 2025 Results
🔗 Vite
🔗 Vitest
🔗 Rolldown
🔗 Hono
🔗 Observable Framework

Andrew's Picks:
🔗 Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity—and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago
🔗 This CTO Says 93% of Developers Use AI, but Productivity Is Still 10%

Julie's Pick:
🔗 Camellia Beans

🎙️ PODCAST
🔗 https://codedeploygo.live, LinkedIn, Bluesky

🎙️ HOSTS
Julie Turner
Andrew Connell: LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky, Newsletter

SPONSORS

Sympraxis (by Julie Turner) 🔗 Website 🔗 Ask Sympraxis 🔗 YouTube

Voitanos (by Andrew Connell) 🔗 Website 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Bluesky

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (05:01) - State of JavaScript 2025 Survey
• (01:09:21) - AC's & Julie's Picks

In this episode, we explore PnPjs, the widely-used open source TypeScript library that simplifies Microsoft 365 development by providing a fluent API for SharePoint REST and Microsoft Graph endpoints. Co-maintainer Julie Turner explains how PnPjs eliminates manual URL string concatenation, offers IntelliSense support for discovering API methods, and works seamlessly across SharePoint Framework (SPFx) client-side solutions, Node.js server applications, and browser-based apps.

We discuss the library's tree-shaking capabilities for minimal bundle sizes, flexible authentication options, including built-in SPFx context behaviors, and its pass-through design that preserves underlying API functionality. Whether you're building SPFx web parts, Azure Functions, or Teams applications, learn why over 38,000 tenants rely on PnPjs to generate 40 billion API calls monthly and how to get started with just two core packages.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================
From the episode intro & banter:
🔗 Breast Cancer Marathon

News / Feature
🔗 PnPjs
🔗 M365 Community Conference

Andrew's Pick:
🔗 Hacking Moltbook: The AI Social Network Any Human Can Control
🔗 How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills

Julie's Pick:
🔗 Qobuz

🎙️ PODCAST
🔗 https://codedeploygo.live, LinkedIn, Bluesky

🎙️ HOSTS
Julie Turner
Andrew Connell: LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky, Newsletter

SPONSORS

Sympraxis (by Julie Turner) 🔗 Website 🔗 Ask Sympraxis 🔗 YouTube

Voitanos (by Andrew Connell) 🔗 Website 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Bluesky

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (06:16) - News / Interview
• (53:52) - AC's & Julie's Picks

In this episode, Andrew Connell and Julie Turner cover critical SharePoint Framework issues affecting developers in early 2026. We discuss breaking changes in the new document library experience that push command set extensions to overflow menus and break folder hiding settings, a significant debugging bug preventing field and form customizers from executing on lists during local development, and the upcoming SPFx Developer Toolbar. We also dive deep into the architectural debate between data-bound "smart" controls versus separation of concerns, examining dependency conflicts in PnP Reusable Controls caused by outdated PnP.js versions and why forcing developers to accept control-imposed dependencies creates maintenance nightmares.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================
From the episode intro & banter:
🔗 AC: Microsoft 365 Copilot & Claude Naming is Misleading
🔗 Julie: Ask Sympraxis & WorkIQ

SharePoint Framework Issues & New Features:
🔗 🐞 Issue 10607: SP Lists breaking SPFx extensibility (field & form customizers)
🔗 🐞 Issue 10598: New doc library breaking SPFx extensibility
🔗 💬 Ask Sympraxis: New Document Library (FEB-4, 2026)
🔗 ✨ SPFx Debug Toolbar

Data-Bound Controls
🔗 PnP Reusable React Controls
🔗 PnP Reusable Property Pane Controls

Andrew's Pick:
🔗 Apollo Guidance Computer: Restoring the computer that put man on the Moon

Julie's Pick:
🔗 Tech Promised Everything. Did it deliver? | Scott Hanselman

🎙️ PODCAST
🔗 https://codedeploygo.live, LinkedIn, Bluesky

🎙️ HOSTS
Julie Turner
Andrew Connell: LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky, Newsletter

SPONSORS

Sympraxis (by Julie Turner) 🔗 Website 🔗 Ask Sympraxis 🔗 YouTube

Voitanos (by Andrew Connell) 🔗 Website 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Bluesky

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (16:45) - SharePoint Framework News (issues & new feature)
• (40:04) - Data-Bound UX Controls
• (01:01:56) - AC's & Julie's Picks

Join Andrew Connell and Julie Turner as they share their top wishes and predictions for 2026 in cloud-based development, focusing on Microsoft 365 and Azure.

Andrew wishes Microsoft would consolidate its confusing AI and Copilot landscape, adopt Anthropic's skills concept for better token usage, and improve documentation to focus on transformation rather than just technical how-tos. Julie hopes Microsoft will finally complete classic SharePoint page modernization, especially for configuration pages, and expand API coverage for critical features like document sets, term store management, and site settings.

On the predictions front, Andrew foresees continued confusion in Microsoft's Teams and agent development story through the Build conference and beyond, while Anthropic continues to lead in AI trust and transparency. Julie predicts potential progress on classic site cleanup but expects disappointment on API improvements and Azure Functions fixes.

This candid discussion offers valuable insights into the challenges developers face with the Microsoft ecosystem and where the platform needs to evolve in 2026.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================

Andrew's Picks:
🔗 Anthropic: Create and distribute a plugin marketplace for Claude Code
🔗 claude-reflect: A self-learning system for Claude Code that captures corrections, positive feedback, and preferences — then syncs them to CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md.

Julie's Pick:
🔗 The 21 Best Non-Alcoholic Drinks In A Can Or Bottle, Based On Testing

🎙️ PODCAST
🔗 https://codedeploygo.live, LinkedIn, Bluesky

🎙️ HOSTS
Julie Turner
Andrew Connell: LinkedIn, YouTube, Bluesky, Newsletter

SPONSORS

Sympraxis (by Julie Turner) 🔗 Website 🔗 Ask Sympraxis 🔗 YouTube

Voitanos (by Andrew Connell) 🔗 Website 🔗 LinkedIn 🔗 Bluesky

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (08:18) - Wishes for 2026
• (37:01) - Predictions for 2026
• (01:00:37) - AC's & Julie's Picks