Create CLI-based wizards

[waldekmastykarz]

Let's say you want to create a custom AAD app to use CLI for Microsoft 365 in your CI/CD pipe. You need to do the following steps:

• create the AAD app
• configure the necessary scopes
• configure secret/certificate
• configure your CI/CD pipe to use the newly created app

And while you could put it in a script, you need to grab the script from somewhere and run it, and the script would need to match the shell you're using.

What if we could offer a wizard that guides through this process? Imagine, the following

$ npx @pnp/cli-microsoft365-cicd-setup

Welcome to the CLI for Microsoft 365 CI/CD setup wizard.
This wizard will help you setup CLI for Microsoft 365 in your CI/CD pipe.
It will create a custom Azure AD app. Configure the necessary permissions.
Configure the secret/certificate and provide you with instructions how to use
it in your pipeline. Let's get started.

1. Which types of apps do you want to deploy (determines the required permissions for the Azure AD app) (select all that apply):
( ) SharePoint Framework (SPFx; .sppkg)
( ) Teams (.zip)
2. How do you want to authenticate with the app?
( ) certificate (recommended)
( ) secret
3. Which CI/CD system do you use?
( ) GitHub Actions
( ) Azure DevOps

Sign in with your work account on the tenant where you want to register the Azure AD app...
# here we're calling `m365 login` with the standard Azure shell app so that we can create the AAD app
Creating custom Azure AD app...
# next we're calling `m365 aad app add` with the parameters matching what's been specified above
We've created the following app:
# we're showing output of the app creation
Here's how to use the app in your pipe:
# here we show the key parts of using the CLI in the pipe
Signing out from Azure AD...
# here we're calling `m365 logout` to clean things up
DONE

We could offer similar wizards for other scenarios that involve switching between different apps, like registering Power Platform management apps. Because we use npx folks don't need to install anything or run any other commands themselves. All dependencies and steps are inside the wizard.

What do you think @pnp/cli-for-microsoft-365-maintainers?

[appieschot]

Not something I currently mis (or never thought of it) but it does sound interesting. I know that there is a sort of wizard in AWS: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-usage-wizard.html would that be worth investigating as well?

[arjunumenon]

So my use case was not particularly a production ready kind of ci/cd, more of a prototype one.

• I was using Azure Devops
• I had a script which creates an app and configure for deploying the app package
• Then manually configure the details in the pipeline

Since I am not before the machine right now, I am afraid, I might not be able to give the complete details. I can give you more once I am before my machine.

Not sure whether that's what you were looking for.

[waldekmastykarz]

It's more than nothing 😄 Let's have a look at it and take it from there 👍

[arjunumenon]

Hey @waldekmastykarz - Just revisiting an area which we had left off and somehow it had missed from my RADAR to reply with details.

For my scenarios for CI/CD, I had written couple of scripts where I am giving details here.

1. Creating a Custom AAD App for CI/CD process which will add the needed permission and add certificate to the AAD App.

Here is the script which does the part - https://gist.github.com/arjunumenon/b0ebb2c3d37ae50c055dd5caaa5ec582#file-aad-app-add-aadapp-ps1

2. Script for logging into M365 using Certificate File
   Here is the script file for the same - https://gist.github.com/arjunumenon/b0ebb2c3d37ae50c055dd5caaa5ec582#file-m365-spo-login-ps1

3. Script which does the package publishing and deployment (May not relevant in the Wizard though). But we can generate a PowerShell script which will be similar to the below script as an output which could be used in the Pipeline
   Here is the script - https://gist.github.com/arjunumenon/b0ebb2c3d37ae50c055dd5caaa5ec582#file-spo-app-add-ps1

This was what I had created during the POC. We can cherry-pick commands from the above and can have something setup especially all the one-time activities which will be super helpful for the CI/CD setup.

[Adam-it]

sorry for the late reply. I also like the idea, also since we already discussed it a bit internally.

[zdwork]

这比什么都好😄让我们看看它并从那里拿走它👍
😄😄😄

[waldekmastykarz]

With everyone in favor, could we define a scenario or two to get started and validate the approach?

[arjunumenon]

Totally. My immediate vote would be for CI/CD scenarios, the exact flow which you had specced in the discussion.

This would be super handy especially the commands to create and configure AAD app.
Another thought which came to my mind is, -

For teams toolkit initial setup, as per the documentation, we have to configure and setup AAD app manually for setting up CI/CD. If we are able to provide a simple command which does that for you, I am sure that is gonna be a life saver for many. My ultimate ambition would be, if we are able to tie this to their toolchain, then nothing more beneficial than that.
But then again, it would be a very long shot

[waldekmastykarz]

Just to check if I understand it correctly: we'd offer a wizard, to use CLI for Microsoft 365 to setup teamsfx for CI/CD, is that correct?

[arjunumenon]

Just to check if I understand it correctly: we'd offer a wizard, to use CLI for Microsoft 365 to setup teamsfx for CI/CD, is that correct?

My thought process is not to restrict the Wizard to Teams Toolkit alone.

In Teams Toolkit, for publishing the Teams App, it uses direct username and password approach (Kind of Service Account approach). So if we make our wizard to respect the settings of Teams Toolkit, it may restrict the wider use cases.

My thought process would be to make it more generic so that this could be used in Teams Toolkit as well as in normal SPFx CI/CD Setup.

In the wizard, I am thinking there will be a multi-select question something like below.

What are the components which would be deployed during the CI/CD?

• SPFx Packages
• Teams App

Depending upon the selection, we will assign needed API Permission to the Service Principal so that in CI/CD, using the same Service Principal, necessary action (Deployment of SPFx Packages, or Publishing of Teams App) could be done.

Adding to that, if we are able to pull it off, we can even couple it with the Teams Toolkit so that end users would not need to setup AAD and its configuration manually via portal like mentioned in the current documentation.

All they may need is to execute our npx @pnp/cli-microsoft365-cicd-setup which will generate a CSV and the users just need to copy and paste the values on the environment variables in the Project.

[waldekmastykarz]

It's twofold: if we make the wizard more reusable, it will mean that users will need to still do some work which in a way defies the purpose of the wizard. On the other hand, if we make the wizard specific to a tool, we might need multiple wizards to accommodate the different tools and scenarios.

[arjunumenon]

Alright. I am with you on that and would second your comment. All it matters is to make dev life easier.

Let us start with something specific for Teams Toolkit and then we can always expand the features for supporting wider use cases as and when needed.
I am in for 🚀..