Power Platform PCF development using Docker Dev Containers in VS Code

Step 1: Install Docker Desktop. Don't use WSL2 installation steps, unless you know what you are doing. Keep the installation simple with Hyper-V.

Step 2:
Install VS code with VS Code extension: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode-remote.remote-containers


Step 3: Create the below folder and files

repo directory
└───.devcontainers
├───Dockerfile
├───devcontainer.json

Ideal to use the Typescript version of the Microsoft container for PCF development. See the details you need to put into Dockerfile and devcontainer.json file.
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dev-containers/tree/v0.245.2/containers/typescript-node

See more details about Microsoft container Reference: https://microsoft.github.io/code-with-engineering-playbook/developer-experience/devcontainers/

Step 3:
In VS code open the dev container extension.
VSCode Command Palette (Ctrl + Shift + P) keyboard shortcut

Find: Dev Containers: Reopen in Container

Step 4: Ready to create PCF project.


Build a sample PCF from Microsoft
------------------

Step 1: npm install

Step 2: Build PCF

a) Build and test PCF in the browser
npm start watch

b) Build
npm run build

c) Build a Dataverse solution
- mkdir solution
- cd solution
- pac solution init --publisher-name developer --publisher-prefix dev
- pac solution add-reference --path /workspaces/work_space_folder/pcf_project_folder
- dotnet build

d) Upload to Dataverse


Additional notes

PCF samples
https://github.com/microsoft/PowerApps-Samples

Useful sample using GitHub Codespaces
https://github.com/rajyraman/pcf-dev-container

Also, you can save the .devcontainers folder in ADO for all devs to access the template.
├───Dockerfile
├───devcontainer.json