/generate-ppmplugin

SkillDev tools

Build and verify a third-party `.ppmplugin` end to end. This recommended entry point detects Android and iOS source, confirms target platforms, then invokes the manifest, platform build, assemble, and audit stages in order. Advanced users can invoke a stage directly for focused reruns or debugging. Produces a native-only bundle (`manifest.json` plus an Android DEX and/or iOS framework) and stops on any failed stage rather than emitting an unverified partial build. Run after the native module exists.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the /generate-ppmplugin skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by microsoft/power-platform-skills in plugins/power-apps-mobile-extension/skills/generate-ppmplugin/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

The recommended entry point for the third-party-control build track. In the normal flow, the user invokes /generate-ppmplugin and it drives the five stage skills (/generate-ppmplugin-manifest, /build-android-binary, /build-ios-binary, /assemble-ppmplugin, /audit-ppmplugin) in order. Advanced users may invoke a stage directly to rerun or debug only that stage. Inspect the repo, pick the right target set, run manifest → build skill(s) → assemble → audit in sequence, and produce a verified .ppmplugin on disk (or a clear stop with the failing stage).

Read shared/ppmplugin-format.md §1 — the bundle layout this orchestrator produces.

What this skill does NOT do

  • Does not author the manifest, build the DEX, build the framework, zip the bundle, or run the audit itself — those are the stage skills. This skill invokes them in the right order, with the right inputs, and gates between them.
  • Does not skip any stage's confirmations / mismatch gates / replace-existing prompts — those still surface to the user. The orchestrator just removes the "which stage next?" decision so the user never has to invoke a stage directly.
  • Does not upload to Dataverse or wire into a canvas app (Stage 3 — deferred).
  • Does not edit source code under src/, ios/, android/ — every stage builds from a staged copy. The repo is read-only from the build's perspective.

Step 1 — Read shared docs + prereq summary

  1. Read shared/shared-instructions.md and shared/ppmplugin-format.md.
  2. Confirm the working directory is a third-party-control repo: a package.json (dev-only <kebab>-control name — not a published @powerapps/extension-* scope; this track ships a binary, not an npm package) and either android/ or ios/ (or both). If missing, STOP with NEEDS_CONTEXT: not a third-party-control-ready repo — missing <list> and point at shared/repo-layout.md.
  3. Print the orchestrator prereq block (sub-skills each re-run their own prereq check when invoked — this is the summary the user sees up front so they know what's required end-to-end):
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 Prereqs — /generate-ppmplugin (end-to-end)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 /generate-ppmplugin-manifest  — no toolchain (pure read + validate + write)
 /build-android-binary         — JDK 17, Android SDK Build-Tools 35 (d8), Gradle
 /build-ios-binary             — Xcode 16+ (26.2+ recommended; CocoaPods optional — header-only path)  (Mac-only)
 /assemble-ppmplugin           — jar (JDK)
 /audit-ppmplugin              — jar (JDK); dexdump or strings (DEX scan)

Each stage will surface its own prereq failure when reached (don't pre-fail the orchestrator on a missing tool the user may have on a different machine).


Step 2 — Detect available targets

Look at the repo to see which native platforms could actually build. Detection is structural, not aspirational — the user can't ship a platform whose source doesn't exist.

TargetDetection signal
Androidandroid/build.gradle exists AND android/src/main/java/**/*.kt contains a ReactContextBaseJavaModule subclass
iOSios/RCT*Module.h declaring <RCTBridgeModule> AND a .m with + (NSString *)moduleName (NOT RCT_EXPORT_MODULE) (podspec optional — only declares extra iOS system frameworks; /build-ios-binary builds from the .h/.m source + the react-native devDep headers, not the podspec)

Print a visible ✓/✗ block:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 Targets available in this repo
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 🟢 ✓ Android — android/build.gradle + PenInputModule.kt found
 🟢 ✓ iOS     — ios/RCTPenInputModule.h (+ .m with +moduleName) found

(If a signal is present but malformed — e.g. android/ exists but no Kotlin module — list it as ✗ with the specific gap. /generate-ppmplugin-manifest will run the deeper structure preflight; this orchestrator just sees if there's enough to consider the platform a viable target.)

If neither target is viable → STOP with NEEDS_CONTEXT: no native target available — repo has neither a buildable android/ nor ios/ module. The .ppmplugin format requires at least one native entrypoint; a manifest-only bundle is not shippable.


Step 3 — Recommend + confirm the target set

Use the detection from Step 2 to pre-mark the recommended option, then confirm with AskUserQuestion:

  • Both available → recommend Both. Reasoning: the whole pipeline runs in one shot; the user gets a bundle that works on every mobile platform.
  • Android only available → recommend Android-only. No iOS source to build.
  • iOS only available → recommend iOS-only. No Android source to build.
Question: Which target(s) should this .ppmplugin ship?
- Both (Recommended)           — runs /build-android-binary AND /build-ios-binary
- Android only                  — skips iOS even though the source is here
- iOS only                      — skips Android even though the source is here

Only show options whose target is viable. If only Android is viable, do not offer "Both" or "iOS only" — just confirm "Android-only" (one option is still worth confirming so the user can cancel).

On Mac-only constraint: if the user picks Both or iOS-only on a non-Mac, surface a one-line warning (/build-ios-binary is Mac-only and will halt the orchestrator when reached). Offer to fall back to Android-only or stop.

Record the chosen target set; it's the contract every downstream sub-skill sees.


Step 4 — Run the stages in sequence (with gates)

Invoke each stage via the Skill tool. After each step, check its result; on DONE continue, on BLOCKED / NEEDS_CONTEXT halt the orchestrator with a clear handoff. Do not try to auto-recover — a failed stage is a signal the user needs to look.

4.1 — /generate-ppmplugin-manifest

Invoke Skill: generate-ppmplugin-manifest. On the normal flow the committed ./manifest.json already exists (authored by /generate-native-extension at scaffold time), so the sub-skill validates it, reconciles its entrypoints to the chosen target, and writes the staged build copy ppmplugin/staging/manifest.json — it does not re-author the contract. (If the repo has no ./manifest.json — a hand-authored module — the sub-skill falls back to authoring it from source.) It runs its own structure preflight, asks the target via AskUserQuestion (default to the orchestrator's choice from Step 3 — recorded in .extension-state.md so the sub-skill doesn't re-prompt unnecessarily), and returns DONE with the staged manifest path.

Re-run safety. If a staged manifest already exists from a prior run, the sub-skill's re-run mode (Step 1.5 in its SKILL.md) handles update / keep-as-is; that's not the orchestrator's concern.

4.2 — Build skill(s) in parallel where possible

The Android and iOS builds are independent — they touch different staging directories (ppmplugin/staging/android-build/ vs …/ios-build/) and produce different outputs. Run them concurrently when both are selected:

Target setSub-skills invoked
Android-onlySkill: build-android-binary
iOS-onlySkill: build-ios-binary
Bothboth, in a single turn (parallel Skill tool calls)

Each build skill returns DONE (with the staged binary path) or BLOCKED (prereq / build failure). On a Both target, if one build fails and the other succeeds, ask via AskUserQuestion:

"/build-<platform> failed; /build-<other> succeeded. How do you want to proceed?"

  • Fix and re-run the failing build — stop the orchestrator; the user investigates the failure
  • Ship <other>-only — drop the failing platform from the target set, continue to assemble
  • Stop

If both fail → STOP with BLOCKED: no platform built — see sub-skill output above.

4.3 — /assemble-ppmplugin

Invoke Skill: assemble-ppmplugin. The stage reconciles the manifest's native entrypoints against the staged binaries, re-validates, zips, and verifies. It returns DONE with the .ppmplugin path.

If the user dropped a platform in Step 4.2 (Ship <other>-only), the stage's own reconcile gate will offer to remove the missing entrypoint from manifest.json — accept that, since the orchestrator already made that decision upstream. Pass through without re-prompting if the underlying tooling allows.

4.4 — /audit-ppmplugin (final verification gate)

Invoke Skill: audit-ppmplugin on the .ppmplugin that /assemble-ppmplugin just produced (pass the bundle path). This is the gate that turns "well-formed zip" into "will actually load on device": it re-runs the validator rules against the built artifact, scans the DEX for SDK-era leakage (INativeExtension*, sendAsync, HermesBytecodeLoader, …), checks manifest↔bundle consistency and the source-to-receiver contract, and returns a verdict.

  • DONE (0 CRITICAL) → the bundle is verified; continue to Step 5 and report READY TO UPLOAD. Surface any WARNINGs in the final report.
  • BLOCKED (≥1 CRITICAL) → do NOT report success. Halt with the audit's CRITICAL findings and the owning-stage handoff (audit already routes each finding to /generate-ppmplugin-manifest or the build skill). The bundle exists on disk but is not upload-ready; the user fixes upstream and re-runs /generate-ppmplugin.

Because the orchestrator runs audit automatically, the user never invokes /audit-ppmplugin themselves on the happy path — it's the last internal stage.


Step 5 — Report

Print the final deliverable as a visible block (informational, no question):

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 /generate-ppmplugin — DONE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 Bundle: ppmplugin/pen-input.ppmplugin   (v0.1.4)   ✓ audit: READY TO UPLOAD
 Target: Both (Android DEX + iOS framework)
 Steps:  manifest ✓  build-android ✓  build-ios ✓  assemble ✓  audit ✓
 Next:   • deploy the dispatcher PCF → /publish-pcf-companion
         • upload this .ppmplugin via the wrap wizard + wire the PCF into a
           canvas app (Stage 3 — not yet a skill).

Then offer the actionable next step via AskUserQuestion (shared-instructions §9.1 — invoke via the Skill tool):

  • Run /publish-pcf-companion (deploy the dispatcher PCF to a Power Platform env — needed before the control works in a canvas app)
  • Run /debug-extension (debug/refine the control, then re-run /generate-ppmplugin)
  • Stay — I'll upload the .ppmplugin manually (Stage 3 isn't a skill yet)

Return DONE with the bundle path. Only report this block when audit returned DONE — a bundle that failed audit is reported via the failure handoff below, never as success.


Failure handoffs

The orchestrator's value is one entry point on the happy path. On a failure it should surface, not absorb. Each handoff names the failing stage and normally tells the user to re-run /generate-ppmplugin after fixing; direct stage invocation is reserved for a focused rerun or diagnostic:

FailureHandoff message
Manifest derivation blockedBLOCKED at manifest stage — <reason>. Fix the flagged item, then re-run /generate-ppmplugin.
Android build failedBLOCKED at android-build stage — <reason>. The manifest in ppmplugin/staging/manifest.json is preserved; re-run /generate-ppmplugin after fixing.
iOS build failed (Mac-only)BLOCKED at ios-build stage — <reason>. If you don't have Xcode here, re-run on a Mac or pick "Android-only" target.
Assemble failedBLOCKED at assemble stage — <reason>. The staged binaries are intact; re-run /generate-ppmplugin after fixing.
Audit found CRITICALBLOCKED at audit stage — <N> CRITICAL finding(s). The .ppmplugin was built but is NOT upload-ready. <first finding + its routed fix>. Fix upstream, then re-run /generate-ppmplugin.

Never report a partial or unverified .ppmplugin as success. A bundle missing a declared entrypoint, or carrying SDK-leakage in its DEX, will fail during upload or silently on device; surface the gap here instead.

Signals

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Sep 2026
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generate-ppmplugin
Source
github.com/microsoft/power-platform-skills