play

A browser launcher for a Microsoft App's cloud version or a cloud-built preview. It can open the latest deployed snapshot, the current main branch, or a specific source-control commit.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to open the live app, review the main branch, or test the app as it existed at a particular commit.
Why use it?
It lets you inspect or test the app without starting a local development server, while making clear whether you are viewing deployed or unpublished code.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/microsoft/managed-apps/play
Any agent
npx skills add microsoft/managed-apps --skill play
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/managed-apps

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 44 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,165 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00044 $0.01165
Opus 5 $0.00022 $0.00583
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00233
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00117

Measured yesterday against content hash 18a458e40550, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

play scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

plugins/microsoft-managed-apps/skills/play/SKILL.md · 123 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 123 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

📋 Shared Instructions: shared-instructions.md — Cross-cutting concerns.

Play

Opens a Microsoft App in the browser by fetching its cloud play URL and launching it. No local dev server required.

Mode Command What opens
live (default) ms app play The most recently deployed version. A snapshot — does not update until ms app deploy is run again.
preview (main) ms app play --mode preview Built from the main branch on demand — always reflects the latest pushed code, even without a deploy.
preview (commit) ms app play --mode preview --commit <sha> App as of a specific commit SHA — useful for code review or regression testing.

Live vs. preview: Live requires a prior ms app deploy. Preview builds from source on demand — it works without any deployment and always reflects unpublished code.

Workflow

  1. Memory Bank → 2. Verify Project + Env → 3. Resolve Mode → 4. Run → 5. Surface URL

Step 1: Check Memory Bank

Read memory-bank.md per shared-instructions.md for the app's environment/app identifiers, if recorded.

Step 2: Verify Project + Env

test -f ms.config.json || { echo "Not in a Microsoft App workspace."; exit 1; }
BIN=ms
$BIN auth status                                         # must report the expected UPN

--app and --environment-id can be passed explicitly to run from outside a project directory — ms.config.json is only needed for the defaults.

Step 3: Resolve Mode

If not already clear from the user's request, ask:

"Do you want to open the live deployed version, a preview of the latest code on main, or a preview of a specific commit?"

Map intent to mode:

User says Mode
"live", "deployed", no qualifier live (default — no flag needed)
"preview", "latest", "unpublished", "before deploy" --mode preview
"preview at commit X" / specific SHA provided --mode preview --commit <sha>

Read the full file on GitHub · 123 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 123 lines · 44 tokens per session scan A 18a458e40550

Subscribe to this mod's changes

play is a skill published in the GitHub repository microsoft/managed-apps (5 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 44 tokens to every session and 1,165 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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