Install and set up Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code
Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code requires some setup and configuration before you can start to build your app.
Install Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code
To start building and debugging apps for Microsoft Teams, you need to install the Teams Toolkit extension. The extension helps you build and debug your Teams apps locally. You can also use it for deploying your Teams apps to hosting services such as Microsoft Azure.
Prepare your Microsoft 365 work or school account
Teams Toolkit requires a Microsoft 365 work or school account with Global Administrator privileges. If you have an administrator account for a test Microsoft 365 tenant that isn't being used in production, you can certainly use it here. Specifically, you need permission to upload Teams applications and consent to Microsoft Entra permissions.
You can create a free account by joining the Microsoft 365 Developer Program if you don't have a work or school account. The Microsoft 365 Developer Program provides a free, renewable Microsoft 365 E5 developer subscription that's pre-provisioned with Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, Outlook, and OneNote. You can use your developer program account to debug and preview your Teams app.
Configure a Microsoft 365 tenant to upload apps for Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams allows you to build and test custom apps within your organization. You need to enable sideloading of custom apps for your organization through the Teams admin center before you can build and debug your app. If you use a test account created through the Microsoft 365 Developer Program, sideloading is pre-enabled for your test account.
Uploading custom apps to Teams is enabled for Microsoft 365 Developer Program tenants by default. If you prefer to use your own Microsoft 365 work or school account, you'll need to configure this functionality for your tenant. After you configure this functionality, it might take few hours to get access to upload custom apps on Teams.
In the next exercise, you'll complete all the required installation and setup steps.