Using React and TypeScript Inside Power Apps With Pro Code

I used to think Power Apps was just for citizen developers. That changed this week.

I built a full Weather and Travel Companion app using React and TypeScript and deployed it directly into Power Apps. No canvas editor, no drag and drop, just code.

The app pulls real time weather for any city, shows a 7 day forecast, gives travel recommendations like what to pack, lets you save locations, and even adjusts the UI based on weather conditions.

What made this interesting was how everything came together with the new Pro Code approach.

I started by scaffolding a React project using the pac CLI. Then I created Custom Connectors to integrate the Open Meteo API. Instead of dealing with CORS issues or setting up proxies, the requests flow through Power Platform infrastructure, which just works. Using pac code add data source automatically generated typed service classes, so everything stayed clean and strongly typed. From there it was a normal React workflow and a simple push to deploy.

One thing that caught me off guard was how Power Apps runs everything inside a sandboxed iframe. Trying to access window.parent led to a silent crash and a blank screen, which took some digging to figure out. Once you understand the boundaries, it makes sense, but it is something to keep in mind.

The bigger takeaway is that Microsoft is clearly bridging the gap between low code and pro code. You get to build with React and TypeScript while still plugging into an enterprise platform with security, governance, and Dataverse.

This is not low code versus pro code anymore. It is both working together.

Curious to hear if other developers are exploring this direction and what your experience has been like.

#PowerApps #React #TypeScript #Microsoft #PowerPlatform #WebDevelopment #ProCode #BuildInPubli