Code. Deploy. Go Live.

NOTE: This replaces episode 33, which had volume issues with our guest, Stefan Bauer.

In this episode, Andrew and Julie are joined by their frequent collaborator Stefan Bauer, a Vienna-based web designer with deep roots in front-end development, to dig into a topic that's easy to overlook: how much you can accomplish with modern HTML and CSS before you ever reach for JavaScript. Stefan walks through the origins of the H2O open source design system, a pure HTML/CSS implementation of Microsoft Fluent UI built on atomic design principles, and explains why designing directly in the browser, rather than through tools like Figma, produces a more accurate and accessible result. Along the way, the conversation covers CSS typed custom properties, container queries, native form validation with the :valid and :invalid pseudo-classes, the details and summary elements as a zero-JavaScript accordion and lazy-loading pattern, and the real-world performance tradeoffs between box-shadow and CSS filter: drop-shadow().

The episode also gets into the collaborative workflow that Stefan and Julie have developed around Pattern Lab, atomic design, and SharePoint Framework (SPFx), showing how a clean separation of concerns between the design system and the application layer lets each specialist work in their swim lane without stepping on the other. Stefan shares how he and Julie use handlebars templates and JSON data in Pattern Lab to prototype fully interactive UIs with real data before a single line of framework code is written, and how that style guide drops in as a Git submodule directly into an SPFx workspace. The hosts also announce a summer hiatus through September before wrapping with picks, including an interactive map of Microsoft's Copilot naming sprawl, a Scott Galloway interview on AI and jobs, and results from a recent AI developer sentiment survey.

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

From the episode intro & banter:
🔗 Andrej Karpathy's LLM Wiki
🔗 Andrej Karpathy Just 10x'd Everyone's Claude Code

News / Feature:
🔗 Atomic Design by Brad Frost
🔗 Create atomic design systems with Pattern Lab
🔗 Approachable Open Source
🔗 Fluent UI
🔗 hTWOo by N8D
🔗 Performance-Optimized Video Embeds with Zero JavaScript
🔗 Box Shadow vs. Filter: drop-shadow()
🔗 MDN: Client-side form validation
🔗 Why input type=”number” is Broken for Decimals

🔗 State of CSS 2026 Survey

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

Andrew's Pick(s)
🔗 Scott Galloway: AI Wasn't Built For You. The Rich Don't Need You Anymore!

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 State of AI 2026

Stefan's Picks:
🔗 How To Design For Trust and Confidence In AI Products
🔗 How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'? I mapped every one

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

• (06:20) - Meet Stefan Bauer

=================================================

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

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

🎙️ GUEST
Stefan Bauer: LinkedIn, GitHub, Bluesky

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

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

In this episode, Andrew and Julie are joined by their frequent collaborator Stefan Bauer, a Vienna-based web designer with deep roots in front-end development, to dig into a topic that's easy to overlook: how much you can accomplish with modern HTML and CSS before you ever reach for JavaScript. Stefan walks through the origins of the H2O open source design system, a pure HTML/CSS implementation of Microsoft Fluent UI built on atomic design principles, and explains why designing directly in the browser, rather than through tools like Figma, produces a more accurate and accessible result. Along the way, the conversation covers CSS typed custom properties, container queries, native form validation with the :valid and :invalid pseudo-classes, the details and summary elements as a zero-JavaScript accordion and lazy-loading pattern, and the real-world performance tradeoffs between box-shadow and CSS filter: drop-shadow().

The episode also gets into the collaborative workflow that Stefan and Julie have developed around Pattern Lab, atomic design, and SharePoint Framework (SPFx), showing how a clean separation of concerns between the design system and the application layer lets each specialist work in their swim lane without stepping on the other. Stefan shares how he and Julie use handlebars templates and JSON data in Pattern Lab to prototype fully interactive UIs with real data before a single line of framework code is written, and how that style guide drops in as a Git submodule directly into an SPFx workspace. The hosts also announce a summer hiatus through September before wrapping with picks, including an interactive map of Microsoft's Copilot naming sprawl, a Scott Galloway interview on AI and jobs, and results from a recent AI developer sentiment survey.

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

From the episode intro & banter:
🔗 Andrej Karpathy's LLM Wiki
🔗 Andrej Karpathy Just 10x'd Everyone's Claude Code

News / Feature:
🔗 Atomic Design by Brad Frost
🔗 Create atomic design systems with Pattern Lab
🔗 Approachable Open Source
🔗 Fluent UI
🔗 hTWOo by N8D
🔗 Performance-Optimized Video Embeds with Zero JavaScript
🔗 Box Shadow vs. Filter: drop-shadow()
🔗 MDN: Client-side form validation
🔗 Why input type=”number” is Broken for Decimals

🔗 State of CSS 2026 Survey

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

Andrew's Pick(s)
🔗 Scott Galloway: AI Wasn't Built For You. The Rich Don't Need You Anymore!

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 State of AI 2026

Stefan's Picks:
🔗 How To Design For Trust and Confidence In AI Products
🔗 How many products does Microsoft have named 'Copilot'? I mapped every one

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

• (06:20) - Meet Stefan Bauer

=================================================

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

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

🎙️ GUEST
Stefan Bauer: LinkedIn, GitHub, Bluesky

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

Music Credit: Ken Bagley

In this episode, Andrew and Julie dig into the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) 1.23 release that went generally available on May 13, 2026. They walk through what's actually in the release, including the new command set grouping support, the deprecation of the hosted workbench (and the community PnP project filling that gap), and the long-awaited new and edit panel override support for lists and libraries landing in 1.23.1. They also unpack the move away from the Yeoman generator toward an open source SPFx CLI, why the open template model has Julie watching the security implications, and Stefan Bauer's running list of issues with the heft build toolchain that anyone doing non-trivial styling should be tracking.

From there, the conversation turns to where SPFx and Microsoft 365 Copilot are heading. Andrew connects the dots on a cryptic roadmap bullet about "SPFx-powered UX for Copilot built with the MCP app model," explaining how MCP apps work today and why this could mean web part developers get Copilot chat surfaces for free, similar to how SPFx tabs work in Microsoft Teams. They wrap with the public preview of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Evaluations Tool for declarative agents built with the Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit, why evals matter when models and orchestrators shift underneath you, and Julie's pragmatic take on leaning on AI to call deterministic tools rather than expecting deterministic AI.

🎧 AUDIO
🔗 Listen to this episode

📺 VIDEO
🔗 Watch this episode

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

🔗 LinkedIn post from Andrew Connell
🔗 Voitanos Is Closing: What Happens Next
🔗 General Availability of SharePoint Framework 1.23 - Advancing the modern developer experience
🔗 SharePoint Framework 1.23 GA overview video
🔗 Beau Cameron, Chris Kent, Hugo Bernier: SPFx-LocalWorkbench
🔗 Stefan Bauer's open issues on sp-dev-docs (heft toolchain feedback)
🔗 AC's M365 Copilot MCP App Demo - PTO Request (not SPFx)
🔗 Announcing the public preview of the Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Evaluations tool

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

Andrew's Pick(s)
🔗 Fred again.. & Thomas Bangalter - USB002, Alexandra Palace, London (27 February 2026)
🔗 Fred again.. - USB002 EVERY SHOW (108 hours, 3 Oct 2025 - 27 Feb 2026)

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Strike Force Five Is And Always Will Be - Kimmel, Fallon, Meyers, Oliver and Colbert
🔗 Strike Force Five Returns to Celebrate Stephen Colbert

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

• (00:40) - ECS Recap and Lisbon Travels

=================================================

🎙️ 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

Microsoft 365 Copilot Extensibility: Declarative Agents, Custom Engines, and Work IQ with Microsoft's Paolo Pialorsi

In this episode, Andrew and Julie sit down with Paolo Pialorsi at a Microsoft conference to explore Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility and the newly announced Work IQ platform. They dive into the three pillars of Copilot extensibility: declarative agents (which leverage Copilot's foundational models and orchestrator), custom engine agents (which give you full control over the model, orchestrator, and customization), and AI apps built with Work IQ that operate outside the Copilot UI. Paolo breaks down how Work IQ differs fundamentally from Microsoft Graph by adding context, memory, and business understanding on top of data, then shares practical guidance on choosing the right path for your scenario.

The conversation covers the microservices-style multi-agent architecture using the agent-to-agent protocol, the Work IQ chat API versus retrieval API, responsible AI guardrails, licensing considerations, and the upcoming Copilot Showroom tool that lets developers explore these APIs without building a full solution. Whether you're getting started with Copilot extensibility or trying to understand when to move from declarative agents to custom engine agents, this episode gives you the mental models and decision trees you need.

🔗 LINKS
=================================================
🔗 A Closer Look at Work IQ
🔗 Work IQ overview
🔗 Overview: Declarative agent
🔗 Paolo Pialorsi on LinkedIn

📺 Watch the episode: https://youtu.be/KZf7KBb7Ga4

🎙️ 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

• (02:16) - MICROSOFT 365 COPILOT EXTENSIBILITY FUNDAMENTALS

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

🎙️ 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 sit down with Beau Cameron and Patrick Rodgers, two of the core maintainers of PnPjs, for the podcast's first guest interview. PnPjs is a client-side TypeScript library that wraps both the SharePoint REST and Microsoft Graph APIs into a fluent, developer-friendly interface. With 38,000 tenants relying on the library and handling roughly 38 billion requests per month, PnPjs has become one of the most mission-critical open source projects in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The conversation digs into the real challenges of maintaining a library at that scale, including architectural decisions like the elegant Timeline design, controversial API choices around URI escaping and the Pages API, and what it means to be responsible stewards of an open source project by refusing to wrap unsupported or reverse-engineered endpoints. You'll also get a peek at what's coming in v5, which Beau and Patrick describe as a maintenance-focused release aimed at improving code coverage, test execution, and expanding Microsoft Graph API coverage.

The hardest part of maintaining PnPjs isn't the code itself, it's maintaining trust. Beau, Patrick, and Julie explore the tough decisions they've had to make as maintainers, from dropping support for legacy v2.1 endpoints to pushing back against shipping features that don't quite work right. Whether it's understanding the design tradeoffs baked into the Timeline architecture, wrestling with the extensibility of behaviors and virtual events, or grappling with the consequences of being used at such massive scale, this episode offers genuine insight into what it takes to steward a library that countless developers depend on every single day.

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

🔗 NASA Artemis II Mission
🔗 Two Outlook Instances Running on Artemis
🔗 PnPjs GitHub Repository
🔗 PnPjs Documentation

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

Patrick's Pick(s):
🔗 De Buyer Mineral B Carbon Steel Fry Pan

Beau's Pick(s):
🔗 Colorado Fruit Farmers Revive Heirloom Apple Orchards

Andrew's Pick(s):
🔗 Claude Code Unpacked

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 SP Rest Explorer by Sergei Sergeev

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

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

🎙️ GUESTS
Patrick Rodgers: LinkedIn, Bluesky
Beau Cameron: LinkedIn, Bluesky, Site

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, Andrew Connell and Julie Turner celebrate SharePoint's 25th anniversary by examining the platform's evolution through a developer's lens. They chronicle the major development models that shaped SharePoint over the past quarter-century, from the early days of no formal development model and ASP.NET server-side rendering in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, through the introduction of the plugin model in 2007, the partially trusted solutions approach in 2010, the app model in 2013, and the modern SharePoint Framework (SPFx) that launched in 2017. Along the way, they discuss how each evolution addressed real customer pain points and Microsoft's ongoing challenge to enable developer customization while maintaining platform stability and security in a multi-tenant cloud environment.

Beyond the technical roadmap, Andrew and Julie reflect on what has made SharePoint meaningful to them personally: the vibrant global community of developers and professionals who have become lifelong friends. They share how the SharePoint ecosystem has provided not only career opportunities but also personal growth through international connections and diverse perspectives. They conclude by discussing SharePoint's current state in the broader Microsoft 365 landscape, where it has evolved from trying to do everything to serving a focused role alongside complementary products like Microsoft Graph, allowing developers to view themselves as part of a larger Microsoft 365 development ecosystem.

🔗 LINKS

=================================================

🔗 SharePoint at 25: Global enterprise knowledge in the AI era
🔗 Introducing new agentic building in SharePoint and more updates
🔗 SharePoint Hackathon
🔗 SharePoint at 25: The knowledge platform for Copilot and agents

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

Julie's Pick(s):
🔗 Apple Is Developing an AI-Powered Wearable Device
🔗 What privacy? As expected, Meta Ray-Bans are a privacy disaster

Andrew's Pick(s)
🔗 Improving Skill Creator: Test, Measure, and Refine Agent Skills

🎙️ 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

• (00:00) - Introduction

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

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