Introduction

The Microsoft Power Platform CLI, commonly called PAC CLI, is a command-line tool for developers and administrators working with Microsoft Power Platform.

It provides commands for working with areas such as:


Installation

Microsoft currently provides three installation methods for Power Platform CLI:

  1. Power Platform Tools extension for Visual Studio Code

  2. .NET Tool

  3. Windows MSI installer

The Visual Studio Code extension and .NET Tool support Windows, Linux, and macOS. The MSI option is Windows-only.


Which Installation Method Should I Use?

For a Power Platform developer working primarily in Visual Studio Code, I would personally start with:

Power Platform Tools Visual Studio Code extension

If you want PAC CLI available as a user-specific global .NET tool from PowerShell, CMD, or Bash, the.NET Tool installation is particularly useful. Microsoft documents that installation as supporting those shells across Windows, Linux, and macOS.

There is one important restriction to understand.

Microsoft currently states that these commands are available only on Windows:

pac data

pac package deploy

pac package show

On Windows, these commands require the Visual Studio Code extension or Windows MSI installation. They aren't available if PAC CLI was installed only through the .NET Tool.

This is worth considering before deciding which installation method you'll use.


Verify Power Platform CLI Installation

Follow the below steps to verify the Power Platform CLI installation.

Step 1: Open the Visual Studio Code.

Step 2: Click on Terminal and New Terminal.

or

Press Ctrl + Shift +` .


Terminal is opened.


Step 3: Type the below command and press enter to see the installed version of the Microsoft PowerPlatform CLI.

pac


Now that PAC CLI is installed successfully.

The CLI follows the general pattern:

pac <command-group> <command> [parameters]

For any help in PowerPlatform CLI, type the below command and press Enter.

pac help


Conclusion

In this this article, we learned what PAC CLI is and explored the installation of it using Visual Studio Code.

We also verified the installation and explored PAC CLI command general pattern and help command.

Now that PAC CLI is installed and ready to use.