Create a connection from the CLI (preview)

Use the Power Apps client library for code apps create-connection command to create a connection for a connector directly from the command line, without leaving your terminal or opening Power Apps as described in How to: Connect your code app to data.

Starting with version 1.2.7, use the list-connectors command to see connectors available in your environment.

Prerequisites

An initialized Power Apps code app. See Quickstart: Create a code app by using the npm CLI.

List available connectors

Before you create a connection, use the list-connectors command to see which connectors are available in your Power Platform environment and to find a connector's API identifier. This is the value you pass to create-connection command api-id option.

The list-connectors command lists connectors from the Power Platform environment that your code app is currently targeting. This is the environment set in power.config.json when you ran power-apps init.

Usage

Run the command from the root of your code app project:

power-apps list-connectors [--search <term>] [--json]

Options

Use the following options with list-connectors.

Option	Alias	Required	Description
--search	-s	No	Filter the results to connectors whose name or display name matches the search term.
--json	—	No	Output the full connector list as JSON for scripting scenarios.

Output

By default, the command prints a table with two columns:

Column	Description
Display Name	The connector's friendly name, for example, Office 365 Outlook.
Connector	The connector's unique name / API identifier, for example, shared_office365. This is the value you pass to create-connection command --api-id option.

When you run the command in an interactive terminal, it returns results in pages of 20 rows. Press Enter to show the next page, or Esc/q to exit. When you redirect the output (non-interactive), or you pass --json, the command emits the full list at once.

The --json output includes additional fields for each connector beyond the two table columns:

Field	Description
id	The connector's ID.
name	The connector's unique name (API identifier), for example shared_office365.
displayName	The connector's friendly display name.
description	The connector's description.
isTabular	Indicates whether the connector supports tabular (table) data operations.

Examples

List all connectors available in the current environment:

power-apps list-connectors

Search for connectors by name:

power-apps list-connectors --search teams

Emit the full connector list as JSON. This is useful in scripts and continuous integration (CI):

power-apps list-connectors --json

Create the connection

Use the create-connection command to create a connection for a connector directly from the command line, without leaving your terminal or opening the Power Apps maker portal.

The connection is created in the Power Platform environment that your code app is currently targeting. This environment is set in power.config.json when you run power-apps init.

Usage

Run the command from the root of your code app project:

power-apps create-connection --api-id <connectorId> [--display-name <name>] [--json]

Options

Use the following options with create-connection.

Option	Alias	Required	Description
--api-id	-a	Yes	Connector API identifier (for example, shared_office365, shared_teams).
--display-name	-n	No	Optional display name for the new connection. If not specified, a default is used.
--json	—	No	Output the result as JSON for scripting scenarios.

Examples

Create an Office 365 connection:

power-apps create-connection --api-id shared_office365

Create a Teams connection with a custom display name:

power-apps create-connection --api-id shared_teams --display-name "My Teams"

Create a connection and emit JSON output. This is useful in scripts and continuous integration (CI):

power-apps create-connection --api-id shared_office365 --json

On success, the command prints the new connection's ID. You can then reference that connection ID when adding the connector as a data source to your code app.