Power Pages Actions in Visual Studio Code

Two years ago I posted about the features within Visual Studio Code to create assets in Power Pages.

Since that time the team at Microsoft has added more features to allow developers to be more productive when extending Power Pages websites using HTML, JavaScript, Liquid, CSS, etc.

To be effective using Visual Studio Code, this meant opening the terminal and running a series of Power Platform command line instructions (PAC CLI) to perform tasks such as connecting to an environment, downloading a website, uploading a website, and other tasks.

This required a bit of context switching between Visual Studio Code, the Power Pages design studio, Power Pages management app and your browser to view you site.

A couple of the benefits of using Visual Studio Code for desktop over Visual Studio Code for the web is the fact that you create new assets like web pages, web templates, content snippets, and web files directly with Visual Studio Code. The other huge benefit is direct access to GitHub Copilot Chat in creating code for Power Pages using @powerpages. Of course, this also provides a way perform some vibe coding in creating your websites.

To be fair, Visual Studio Code for the web does allow fast and direct access to the code from within Power Pages design studio, so you don’t have to download and upload code.

The new Power Pages actions menu provides you will the following new options:

• Change environment
• For websites
  • Preview
  • Upload
  • Download
  • Site Details
  • Review in Explorer
  • Open in Power Pages design studio

I won’t rehash the documentation in the blog as it provides a good overview of the new features.

MS Learn: Power Pages Actions

However, I will provide a quick tour with this video:

Wait? Where are my websites?

One thing I noticed is that the Power Pages Actions didn’t show any sites! Even though I know for a fact that the selected environment had some, I even could list them using the PAC commands.

The issue was that the environment I had connected with the Auth profile to was NOT the same account that I was logged into Visual Studio Code or the Power Platform extension as.

To sort it out, first sign out of Visual Studio Code with the currently logged in account.

This will also sign you out of the Power Platform Tools

Next hit refresh in the Power Pages Actions, and you will be prompted to sign back in.

You will need to pick the account that is aligned with the tenant that you want to work with. You will get prompted twice.

Then select the matching Auth profile.

You then should see your sites and be able to perform actions.

Summary

Check out the Power Pages actions for yourself and hopefully it can increase your productivity when building websites!

Nick Doelman is a Microsoft MVP, podcaster, trainer, public speaker, and competitive Powerlifter. Follow Nick on X at @readyxrm or LinkedIN, and Bluesky. Listen or watch the the Power Platform Boost podcast with Nick and co-host Ulrikke Akerbæk every second week for news and updates from the Power Platform community.

Original Post https://readyxrm.blog/2025/04/20/power-pages-actions-in-visual-studio-code/