Andrew Connell

My one hook: no PR gets opened until visual tests pass on macOS AND Linux. My most common mistake: dumping everything into `CLAUDE.md`. Mine hit 540 lines. "Claude Code skills vs rules vs hooks: where each one goes" 🔗 aconn.me/homecoming-2...

What rule did you finally have to turn into a hook? Catch up on the whole series: 🔗 aconn.me/homecoming-s... #ClaudeCode #AI #AgenticEngineering

The part I figured I'd hate, release-please and all its release PRs, ended up being one of my favorite parts. "How I ran a 415-issue project with Claude Code and superpowers" 🔗 aconn.me/homecoming-2...

Second: the files that teach Claude Code how my repo works. I got tired of explaining commit messages for the third time. CLAUDE.md = context Rules = policy Skills = know-how for a task Commands = scripts I'd otherwise write Hooks = what can NEVER be skipped

First up: process. I started with plan mode. It worked fine until it didn't. Every change was a one-off. After a few weeks of writing content, I'd come back to the code and forget decisions I'd already made. Sometimes I'd contradict them.

After joining AvePoint I copied how a real eng team works. Every change gets an issue written like a PRD, a brainstorm, a spec I review, a plan I don't read, a worktree, and a PR. 415 issues, 320 PRs. Overkill for a personal site? Yep. Did it anyway.

andrewconnell.comAndrew Connell | 23-Year Microsoft MVP & Agentic EngineerAndrew Connell - Principal Software Engineer at AvePoint, focused on agentic engineering; 23-year Microsoft MVP, Microsoft 365 dev & Copilot extensibility.

In 2017, I moved my best content off andrewconnell.com to give a new business a running start. This year I brought it all home. 426 pages. 281 course pages. 217 videos. 8,911 comments. And every old voitanos.io URL now answers with a single 301 to its new home. 🧵

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🔎 Hybrid semantic search with pgvector over every page and every comment 🛜 A static Hugo site on GitHub, Cloudflare Workers, and Azure Container Apps, and what I'd revisit And the search traffic? andrewconnell.com went from about 5% of the organic share to close to 90% in two months.

Have you ever moved a body of work between domains, or shut one down? Did you bring it all with you, or let it go? Follow the whole series as it's published: 🔗 aconn.me/homecoming-s... #ClaudeCode #AI #Microsoft365 #SPFx

Yesterday I published the first article in a new series, "Homecoming," that tells the story of the move: "Bringing 23 years of content home" 🔗 aconn.me/homecoming-2... Over the coming weeks & months, I'll drip out 30 more, including… 👇

aconn.meaconn.me

🤖 How I ran a project this size with Claude Code and superpowers (440+ merged PRs, 140 design specs, 125 ADRs) 🔗 Preserving every URL across a round trip without a single redirect chain 💬 Bringing 23 years of comments from Disqus, Giscus, Circle, and Discord into one Postgres database

One person, working only in my personal time while doing my full-time job at AvePoint by day. Over six months, Claude Code did most of the work and was a GREAT thinking partner!

share.transistor.fm030 | M365 Copilot Declarative Agents Level Up: MCP Apps, Embedded Knowledge & Coding SkillsIn this episode, Andrew and Julie dive into the latest updates to the...

Here's the thing: every course I used to sell is now free. When I joined AvePoint in May and decided to close Voitanos (effective October 1), there was no reason left to keep a gate in front of what I know. So I went back to my roots and published it all.

Andrew Connell reposted

Code. Deploy. Go Live.

@codedeploygo.live

22 Apr

🎙️ Just published a new episode of Code. Deploy. Go Live.: 030 | M365 Copilot Declarative Agents Level Up: MCP Apps, Embedded Knowledge & Coding Skills. Have a listen:

⏰ Last call: today at noon ET. A few hours from now I'm going live to answer the question I get more than any other right now: "Andrew, which agent option should I actually use?"

/4 A preview of what registrants have already asked me to cover: ✅ How declarative agents stack up vs Copilot Studio agents (this one came up a LOT) ✅ The options, trade-offs, and impacts nobody talks about until you're 3 weeks in

/5 More on the docket: ✅ Real examples of Copilot agents that have landed with users — including a few I built to run Voitanos ✅ "Should I even be using a Copilot agent for this?" (sometimes no — and I'll tell you when) ✅ A few cool tricks I've picked up

⏰ Last call: today at noon ET. A few hours from now I'm going live to answer the question I get more than any other right now: "Andrew, which agent option should I actually use?"

/2 SharePoint Agents. Copilot Studio. Declarative Agents with the M365 Agents Toolkit. Three doors. Microsoft says all three are great. You have to pick one and live with it.

/3 In a few hours, I'll give you a framework for choosing — based on what you're actually building, who it's for, and what your org can realistically support.

You rolled out M365 Copilot. Leadership's happy. Press release went out. 🚀 Then someone asks: "Can it answer questions from our SOPs? Our ERP? That SharePoint site nobody's touched since 2019 but somehow runs half the company?" Out of the box? No. 😳 🧵 👇

/6 More from the registrant questions: Real examples of agents getting actual adoption (I'll share a few I built to run my own business) 🤔 "Should I even be using a Copilot agent for this?" I'll address all of these live, plus whatever comes up in chat.

/7 FREE Webinar: Evaluate Your Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Options 📅 Tomorrow, April 8 🕛 12:00 PM ET 🎟️ Free — registration required 👉 vtns.io/b5czob

/4 So tomorrow I'm running a free webinar to cut through it: 👉 Evaluate Your Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent Options What each option actually does, where each falls down, and how to match the tool to the problem — not the other way around.

/5 Looking at questions registrants have already submitted, here's what's on people's minds: 🤔 "How do declarative agents compare to Copilot Studio agents?" 🤔 What are the real trade-offs of each choice?

/2 Copilot only knows the underlying LLM and what's already in your tenant. The valuable stuff — manuals, policies, inventory, customer records — lives somewhere else. Custom agents are how you bridge that gap.

/3 But now you've got a new problem: which kind of agent? ✅ SharePoint Agents ✅ Agent Builder ✅ Copilot Studio ✅ Declarative Agents w/ the M365 Agents Toolkit in VS Code Microsoft says all are great. Not helpful when you have to ship.

24 Mar

#VibeCoding and #AgenticEngineering are NOT the same thing. After months of using AI agents daily, I wrote about where vibe coding falls apart and why agentic engineering is the better path for professional devs. 📧 That's what today's newsletter is about 🔗 vtns.io/zid6jj #ClaudeCode

Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit v6.6.0 just dropped and it's a big one. 🏛️ GCC-M support 🧠 Embedded knowledge for Declarative Agents 🔌 MCP going GA 🗑️ 61 templates removed Here's what you need to know. 🧵 👇

[6] This template cleanup is a clear signal: Microsoft sees the future of M365 development as agent-centric. If you're still building with the old patterns, now's the time to start learning the new approach.

[7] I wrote a full breakdown covering every change and what it means for developers in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Check it out: vtns.io/atk-6.6-bs What stands out to you most?

[4] 🔌 Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for Declarative Agents just went GA. This is a big deal for how agents interact with external tools and data sources.

[5] 🗑️ Microsoft removed 61 project templates from ATK. Notification bots, link unfurling, message extensions, dashboard tabs, SPFx web parts... all gone. The toolkit is consolidating around Declarative Agents, Custom Engine Agents, and Foundry Agents.

[2] 🏛️ GCC-M support is finally here. If you're building Microsoft Teams apps or Declarative Agents for government customers, you can now target GCC-M environments directly from ATK. GCC High & DoD are on the roadmap.

[3] 🧠 Embedded knowledge for Declarative Agents is the highlight for me. Package SOPs, reference docs, and product documentation directly inside your agent. They deploy and version together. No SharePoint or OneDrive connections required.

13 Mar

Latest newsletter: 🎂 SharePoint turned 25 and I turned 50. I reflected on half a life spent on one platform - the undocumented hacks, two businesses, decades of friendships, and hard lessons. 📧 Subscribe for this issue plus weekly M365 dev news. vtns.io/iencga

@carlquintanilla.bsky.social

10 Mar

🎂 SharePoint turned 25. I turned 50 two days earlier. Half my life on one platform - I wrote about the hacks, the hard lessons, two businesses, and why the people matter most. Subscribe to my newsletter for the full story plus weekly M365 dev news. vtns.io/nfta51 #sharepoint25 #SharePointat25

Andrew Connell reposted

FLAVOR FLAV ⏰

@flavorflav.bsky.social

28 Feb

Thankx again for the brands who have reached out about She Got Game weekend,,, I gots a small but mighty staff starting to work thru those requests and we working with the athletes to see what they want.

FLAVOR FLAV ⏰@flavorflav.bsky.social

So impressed and blessed for all the brands reaching out to support. thousand and more companies offered to donate product and my team gunna get to it. 🙏🏾🙏🏾 BUT if you a billion dollar company,,, we don’t want a product donation. We want you to sponsor these women + athletes. 👀

Andrew Connell reposted

Carl Quintanilla

28 Feb

> @covie93.bsky.social

Andrew Connell reposted

God

@thegodshow.com

28 Feb

The ‘Board of Peace’ started World War 3 so fast.

27 Feb

Microsoft says don't do DOM manipulation in SPFx. I teach devs the same. But I do it myself. In this week's newsletter, I shared the responsible approach I follow and the real-world solutions I've built with it. Subscribe to catch this issue and future ones!

Andrew Connell reposted

Vesa Juvonen

@vesajuvonen.bsky.social

21 Jan

💡 SPFx 1.22 updates the toolchain; Gulp is out, Heft is in. Let @vesajuvonen.bsky.social and @andrewconnell.com show what changes and how the new build pipeline works. 📺 Watch the demo → youtu.be/ofd2pLMVvS0

Andrew Connell reposted

Code. Deploy. Go Live.

@codedeploygo.live

21 Jan

Episode 023 Cloud Dev Trends: Our Wishes & Predictions for 2026! @julieturner.net and @andrewconnell.com talk wishes and predictions for Microsoft 365 developers in 2026. Watch or listen to the full episode! 👇 📺 aka.codedeploygo.live/v023 🎧 aka.codedeploygo.live/e023

12 Feb

Did you know M365 Copilot has a hidden default that overrides your agent's instructions? In my latest newsletter, I break down the problem, how I discovered it, and the fix. Subscribe to get this issue and future ones 👇 vtns.io/h51kvz

10 Feb

Your M365 Copilot agent isn't ignoring your instructions by accident. There's a hidden default workflow overriding your prompt engineering. I'm breaking down the problem and the fix in my next newsletter issue today! Subscribe so you don't miss it 👇 vtns.io/4ss7ss