Is there a way to avoid the Azure sign in when creating a Teams Tab?

[cardinalpipkin]

I need to create a teams tab using M365 agents toolkit (not an agent). It asks me to sign in to Azure. I don't want to have to do this, or use Azure in any way. Is there a way to bypass this ask?

[VikrantSingh01]

Yes, you can develop and run a Teams tab locally without signing into Azure. Here is a breakdown of when Azure sign-in is required and how to avoid it.

Understanding the Two Sign-In Prompts

The M365 Agents Toolkit has two separate account entries in the Accounts section of the VS Code sidebar:

• Microsoft 365 account — This is your M365 work/school account. It is required for local development because the toolkit uses it to register/update your app in the Teams Developer Portal and sideload it into Teams for testing.
• Azure account — This is only needed when you want to provision or deploy cloud resources to Azure (e.g., Azure App Service, Azure Functions, etc.). You do not need this for local development.

If the toolkit is prompting you to sign into Azure, you can safely dismiss or ignore that prompt as long as you are only doing local development and debugging.

Local Development Without Azure

When you press F5 in VS Code (or use atk preview --env local from the CLI), the toolkit uses the local environment configuration to run everything locally. This workflow:

1. Provisions local resources only (no Azure subscription needed)
2. Starts a local dev server for your tab (typically on https://localhost)
3. Generates a local dev certificate for HTTPS
4. Registers/updates the app in the Teams Developer Portal using your M365 account
5. Opens the Teams web client with your tab loaded

No Azure sign-in is involved in this flow.

Fully Azure-Free Alternative: Manual Approach

If you want to avoid the toolkit's provisioning entirely and have zero Azure dependency, you can build a Teams tab as a standalone web app:

1. Build your tab as a regular web app (React, plain HTML/JS, or any framework). A Teams tab is simply a web page loaded in an iframe inside Teams.

2. Create a manifest.json manually following the app manifest schema. At minimum, you need:

{
  "$schema": "https://developer.microsoft.com/json-schemas/teams/v1.19/MicrosoftTeams.schema.json",
  "manifestVersion": "1.19",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "id": "<generate-a-new-GUID>",
  "developer": { "name": "Your Name" },
  "name": { "short": "My Tab App" },
  "description": { "short": "A simple tab", "full": "A simple Teams tab" },
  "icons": { "outline": "outline.png", "color": "color.png" },
  "staticTabs": [
    {
      "entityId": "home",
      "name": "Home",
      "contentUrl": "https://your-hosting-url.com",
      "websiteUrl": "https://your-hosting-url.com",
      "scopes": ["personal"]
    }
  ],
  "accentColor": "#FFFFFF",
  "validDomains": ["your-hosting-url.com"]
}

3. Host it anywhere — any HTTPS-accessible server works (Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages, your own server, etc.). Azure is not required.

4. Package and sideload: Zip your manifest.json along with the two icon files (color.png at 192x192 and outline.png at 32x32) and upload it to Teams via Apps > Manage your apps > Upload a custom app.

When Azure Sign-In IS Required

Azure sign-in becomes necessary only when you:

• Run atk provision --env dev (or any non-local environment) to create Azure resources
• Run atk deploy --env dev to deploy your app to Azure hosting
• Use the Provision or Deploy commands from the toolkit's sidebar
• Need SSO (Single Sign-On) with Microsoft Entra ID, which requires an Azure app registration

Summary

Scenario	M365 Sign-In	Azure Sign-In
Local debug with F5 / atk preview --env local	Required	Not required
Manual sideload with your own hosting	Required (for sideloading)	Not required
Provision cloud resources	Required	Required
Deploy to Azure	Required	Required
SSO / Microsoft Entra integration	Required	Required

For your use case of building a Teams tab without Azure, you have a clear path forward — either use the toolkit's local debug flow (F5) and ignore the Azure sign-in prompt, or go fully manual with your own manifest and hosting.

References

• Debug Teams App Locally
• App Manifest Schema
• Package your app

[cardinalpipkin]

If using local development without Azure, how then to provision and deploy?