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Set up your dev environment to build message extension plugins for Microsoft 365 Copilot

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Important

Message Extensions as Copilot plugins are currently in public preview with limited functionalities. Message extension plugins can be worked standalone in Microsoft 365 Copilot in Teams, Word and PowerPoint however, cannot be added from declarative agents.

Before you get started to build a search-based message extension plugin for Copilot, make sure that Microsoft 365 Copilot is available for your organization. You have two ways to get a developer environment for Copilot: (1) with a sandbox Microsoft 365 tenant with Copilot (available in limited preview through TAP membership), or with (2) through an enterprise customer production environment with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses.

Read the general requirements at Your development environment for Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility for more.

Set up your Teams development tenant

A tenant is like a space, or a container for your organization in Microsoft Teams, where you chat, share files, and run meetings. This space is also where your sideload (installing and testing your app directly into your Teams environment for development) and test your app. Let's check if you're ready to develop with the tenant. Do you already have a tenant, and do you have the admin access? Let's check if you really do!

In the Teams client,

  1. Select the Apps icon
  2. Select Manage your apps
  3. Select Upload an app
  4. Look for the option to Upload a custom app. If you see the option, sideloading apps is enabled!

A screenshot of Teams client that shows how to check if your custom app is sideloadable

If you don't have the option to upload a custom app, talk to your Teams administrator.

Install prerequisites to your machine

Now make sure you install the following tools for building and deploying your apps:

Install Teams Toolkit to Visual Studio Code

The Teams Toolkit helps simplify the development process with tools to provision and deploy cloud resources for your app, publish to the Teams Store, and more.

You can use the toolkit with VS Code (Visual Studio Code), or CLI (command-line interface) called TeamsFx. Let's install both tools now.

  1. Open VS Code and select the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / ⌘⇧-X or View > Extensions).
  2. In the search box, enter Teams Toolkit.
  3. Select Install next to the Teams Toolkit.

A screenshot of VS Code that shows how to install Teams Toolkit extension

The Teams Toolkit icon appears in the VS Code Activity Bar after it's installed.

You can also find the Teams Toolkit on the Visual Studio Code Marketplace.

Now you're ready to build your first message extension plugin for Copilot!

Next step

Follow the step-by-step guides to build your first message extension plugin:

Build your first message extension plugin for Copilot