AI Assistants

Power Platform ToolBox can expose your installed tools to supported AI assistants through its built-in MCP server. That means an assistant can discover the tools you already use in PPTB and run them on your behalf, either with a visible UI or as part of an automated flow.

Overview

This feature is aimed at people who want to combine PPTB with an AI assistant such as Claude Desktop or Visual Studio Code.

Agentic AI capabilities are available from the MCP Server page in PPTB and no longer require enabling a preview feature.

Find Agent-Ready Tools

Tools that support automated MCP execution display an MCP badge in the Home, Tools, and Marketplace views. Use the MCP enabled filter in Tools or Marketplace to narrow the list to compatible tools.

The badge specifically identifies tools that can run without opening their UI. Other tools may still support interactive assistant-driven runs.

Connect an Assistant

Open the MCP Server page from the activity bar to start or stop the built-in server and connect a supported client.

PPTB includes Connect Claude Desktop and Connect Visual Studio Code actions, so you do not need to assemble the client configuration manually. Each client displays one of these connection states:

Status	Meaning
Connected	The PPTB MCP server entry is present and valid in the client's configuration
Not configured	No PPTB MCP server entry was found for the client
Invalid	A PPTB entry exists, but its configuration cannot be used

After connecting a client, restart or reload that client if it does not discover the server immediately.

Enable Keep MCP Server Running when you want PPTB to automatically make MCP available again as tools are opened or restored. Leave it disabled when you prefer to control the server manually.

Two Ways to Run Tools

PPTB supports two styles of assistant-driven tool execution:

Run style	What it feels like	Best for
Interactive tool run	The tool opens its normal UI and the assistant works with that interactive experience	Pickers, review screens, confirmation steps, anything where a person should stay in the loop
Automated tool run	The tool completes the task without opening its UI	Background actions, repeatable workflows, CI jobs, or agent-driven orchestrations

The assistant chooses the run style based on what the tool supports and what the task requires.

Interactive Tool Runs

In an interactive tool run, the assistant launches the tool the same way a person would, with the tool interface visible inside PPTB.

This is useful when the task needs:

• a user to review data before continuing
• a picker or form that depends on human choice
• an existing tool that has not added an automated runtime yet

From the user's perspective, this is the safest and most familiar path because the tool still behaves like a normal PPTB experience.

Automated Tool Runs

In an automated tool run, the assistant calls a tool that has been prepared to work without its regular UI.

This is useful when the task needs:

• repeatable background execution
• integration into larger agent workflows
• unattended processing
• a direct JSON result that the assistant can reason over immediately

Not every tool supports automated runs. Tool authors must explicitly add that runtime.

What Assistants Can Do

Once connected, an assistant can work with the tools you have installed in PPTB to:

• discover what tools are available
• understand what inputs a tool expects
• launch a tool with pre-filled arguments
• wait for a result when the tool is designed to return one
• combine multiple tool calls into a larger workflow

In practice, this makes PPTB tools usable as building blocks inside assistant-driven tasks instead of only as standalone desktop experiences.

Monitor Invocations

The MCP Server page refreshes while it is open and lists assistant-driven tool invocations. Select an invocation to inspect:

• status and progress
• tool runtime messages
• structured result data
• failure details

Use Clear logs to remove the displayed invocation history. Clearing logs does not change whether a tool is available to assistants.

The exact details depend on the tool. Automated tools can report live progress and structured results, while interactive tools may require you to complete work in the opened tool window.

Security and Access

PPTB does not automatically make every installed tool available for every kind of agent workflow.

• Tool authors control whether a tool is invokable by assistants.
• Automated runs can use caller-provided authentication or a saved PPTB connection when supported by the tool and runtime.
• Input and output payloads follow each tool's declared contract, which helps keep assistant calls predictable.
• Invocation details can include tool-provided messages and result data. Review them before sharing diagnostics, and do not place secrets in tool output or logs.

Next Steps