Power Platform on the CLI, Part 3: A Tour of All Seven Plugins

You've installed the marketplace (Part 2) and you know how to read a plugin. Now here's the map: what each of the seven plugins in power-platform-skills actually builds, the stack it targets, the skills that do the heavy lifting, and the MCP servers behind it.

A quick shared note first: nearly all of these lean on the Power Platform CLI (pac) for authentication and deployment, and several also want the Azure CLI (az). The one-liner installer from Part 2 sets up pac for you. With that out of the way, the tour.

1. power-pages — external-facing websites and portals

Version 2.6.2 · Stack: React / Angular / Vue / Astro SPAs on Dataverse

The largest and most mature plugin. It builds Power Pages code sites — single-page apps served by Power Pages and backed by Dataverse tables via the Web API. This is your public-facing surface: customer portals, registration sites, self-service.

It's not just a scaffolder. The skill list reads like a full lifecycle: create-site takes you from concept to deployed site; setup-datamodel and setup-solution establish the Dataverse foundation; integrate-webapi and add-ai-webapi wire the front end to data (and to AI-backed endpoints); setup-auth, create-webroles, audit-permissions, and security-review handle identity and table permissions; and a serious ALM stack — plan-alm, setup-pipeline, deploy-pipeline, ensure-pipelines-host, force-link-environment, export-solution/import-solution, and diagnose-deployment — covers multi-solution CI/CD across environments. The headline plan-alm skill even runs a solution-splitting decision tree for you.

MCP servers: Playwright (the agent opens the running site in a browser and verifies its own changes via accessibility snapshots) and the hosted Microsoft Learn MCP (authoritative docs on demand). Specialist agents include a data-model-architect, webapi-integration, and table-permissions-architect.

2. model-apps — generative pages for model-driven apps

Version 2.2.0 · Stack: React + TypeScript + Fluent UI, deployed via pac

Where Power Pages is external, model-apps is internal. It builds generative pages ("GenUX"/GenPage) that live inside model-driven Power Apps — custom, code-generated React pages using Fluent UI that sit alongside the standard grids and forms your users already know.

The main skill is genpage, but the interesting part is how it works: a small fleet of specialist agents divides the job — a genpage-planner designs the approach, a genpage-entity-builder handles Dataverse entities, a genpage-connector-builder wires data, a genpage-page-builder does parallel code generation, and a genpage-edit-planner manages changes to existing pages. Requires pac CLI ≥ 2.7.0 and the Azure CLI. It ships a Playwright MCP for live verification.

3. mcp-apps — interactive widgets for MCP tools

Version 1.0.0 · Stack: self-contained HTML widgets using the MCP Apps protocol

The smallest and most specialized. When you build MCP tools, their output is usually just text or JSON. mcp-apps generates interactive HTML widgets — using the emerging MCP Apps (ext-apps) protocol and Fluent UI — so a tool's results render as a real UI instead of a blob of data. Its one working skill is generate-mcp-app-ui. No MCP servers of its own and no external CLI dependency; it's a pure code generator. Think of it as the presentation layer for the MCP tools you write.

4. canvas-apps — canvas apps as code

Version 2.1.1 · Stack: PA YAML (.pa.yaml) via the Canvas Authoring MCP server

Canvas apps are the drag-and-drop staple of Power Apps, and this plugin lets an agent author them as code. It works through the .pa.yaml source format and a dedicated Canvas Authoring MCP server (Microsoft.PowerApps.CanvasAuthoring.McpServer), which it launches via dnx — so you need the .NET 10 SDK installed.

Skills: canvas-app / generate-canvas-app to build one, add-data-source to connect it to data, and configure-canvas-mcp to set up the authoring server. Two agents — a canvas-app-planner and a canvas-screen-builder — split planning from screen construction. This is the plugin to reach for when you want the familiar canvas experience but authored and versioned like real source.

5. code-apps-preview — Power Apps code apps

Version 1.0.0 (preview) · Stack: React + Vite + TypeScript, deployed via pac

Power Apps code apps are a newer model: you write a real React + Vite app and connect it to the Power Platform through connectors rather than building on the canvas. This plugin scaffolds and deploys them.

Its skills are organized around connectivity, and the list is a good tour of the Power Platform connector surface on its own: create-code-app and deploy bookend the lifecycle, while add-dataverse, add-connector, add-datasource, add-sharepoint, add-office365, add-onedrive, add-teams, add-excel, add-azuredevops, and add-mcscopilot each wire in a specific data source. list-connections shows what's already wired. A single code-app-architect agent plans the structure. No bundled MCP server — it's pac-driven.

6. mobile-app — native mobile apps

Version 0.1.0 · Stack: Expo + React Native + TypeScript, deployed via Power Apps Wrap

The mobile counterpart to code apps. It builds Expo / React Native apps that reach the Power Platform through connectors and — the differentiator — support native device features and offline. This is the richest plugin by skill count.

You get the connector family again (add-connector, add-dataverse, add-sharepoint, add-datasource), plus mobile-specific capabilities: add-native for device functionality, a full offline workflow (setup-offline-profile, enable-tables-offline, add-table-to-offline-profile, assign-offline-profile, preview-offline-scope), design and preview skills (design-system, preview-screens, edit-app), a debug-app skill that reads the live Metro terminal, and deploy / open-wrap-url to ship via Power Apps Wrap. Agents include a data-model-architect, native-app-planner, offline-profile-architect, screen-planner, and screen-builder. It ships the Microsoft Learn MCP for docs.

7. power-automate — cloud flows

Version 2.0.0 · Stack: Node.js + Azure CLI, via the FlowAgent MCP server

The automation glue. power-automate lets an agent build, edit, run, and debug Power Automate cloud flows through a self-contained FlowAgent MCP server (bundled in the plugin; needs Node.js 18+ and az login).

Skills cover the whole flow lifecycle: create-flow and build-flow to author, manage-flows / browse-flows to inventory, debug-flow and diagnose-flow to troubleshoot, route-environments to copy flows across environments, manage-desktop-flows for the RPA side, and setup to get the FlowAgent server configured. What sets it apart is surgical editing — it makes targeted changes to existing flows and validates expressions, rather than regenerating a flow from scratch.

The shape of the whole set

Step back and the marketplace covers the entire Power Platform build surface from the terminal:

Each one is useful on its own. The interesting question is what happens when you use them together — which is exactly what Part 4 does, building one connected solution that touches all seven.

Sources: power-platform-skills plugins directory · Power Pages plugin README