Episode 422: Back to the Terminal: The Rise of AI CLI Interfaces

February 26, 2026

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Episode 422 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. In this episode, Scott and Ben discuss their growing use of in their daily workflows, particularly Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Gemini CLI. They explore how these command-line interfaces offer powerful ways to interact with local files and MCP servers beyond traditional desktop AI chat interfaces. They share how they are using these tools in their day-to-day roles to perform different tasks and accelerate their workflows.

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1 00:00:03,439 --> 00:00:05,759 Welcome to episode 422 2 00:00:05,759 --> 00:00:08,960 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro podcast recorded 3 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:11,539 live on 02/09/2026. 4 00:00:11,839 --> 00:00:14,000 This is a show about Microsoft three sixty 5 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:16,094 five and Azure from the perspective of IT 6 00:00:16,094 --> 00:00:18,414 pros and end users, where we discuss a 7 00:00:18,414 --> 00:00:20,654 topic or recent news and how it relates 8 00:00:20,654 --> 00:00:23,295 to you. In this episode, Scott and Ben 9 00:00:23,295 --> 00:00:26,494 discuss their growing use of AI CLI tools 10 00:00:26,494 --> 00:00:27,795 and their daily workflows, 11 00:00:28,339 --> 00:00:28,839 particularly, 12 00:00:29,300 --> 00:00:33,560 Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, and Gemini CLI. 13 00:00:33,859 --> 00:00:36,740 They explore how these command line interfaces offer 14 00:00:36,740 --> 00:00:39,380 powerful ways to interact with local files and 15 00:00:39,380 --> 00:00:43,225 MCP servers beyond traditional desktop desktop AI chat 16 00:00:43,225 --> 00:00:43,725 interfaces. 17 00:00:44,184 --> 00:00:46,344 They share how they are using these tools 18 00:00:46,344 --> 00:00:48,184 in their day to day roles to perform 19 00:00:48,184 --> 00:00:50,765 different tasks and accelerate their workflows. 20 00:00:53,384 --> 00:00:55,064 Kinda funny, Scott. We're in the same city, 21 00:00:55,064 --> 00:00:56,984 but we still record this remotely from our 22 00:00:56,984 --> 00:00:58,480 offices. But we'll go out and hang out 23 00:00:58,480 --> 00:01:00,880 for breakfast. And we had this conversation the 24 00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:03,120 other day too even around AI of, like 25 00:01:03,440 --> 00:01:05,680 I don't I'm curious what listeners think. Like, 26 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:08,659 if there's other stuff that listeners are seeing 27 00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:11,599 that we're just missing or not talking about 28 00:01:11,599 --> 00:01:12,855 that they wanna hear about. 29 00:01:13,335 --> 00:01:14,775 But both you and I have had this 30 00:01:14,775 --> 00:01:16,855 feeling of, like, all we talk about is 31 00:01:16,855 --> 00:01:18,475 AI because that's 32 00:01:19,015 --> 00:01:20,215 95% 33 00:01:20,215 --> 00:01:21,734 of the news, and all the other stuff 34 00:01:21,734 --> 00:01:23,275 is just like, there's 35 00:01:24,375 --> 00:01:26,295 I've been struggling, and I think you have 36 00:01:26,295 --> 00:01:28,450 too, of coming up with non AI topics 37 00:01:28,450 --> 00:01:31,270 to talk about new features and functionality. So 38 00:01:31,489 --> 00:01:33,569 I am curious. If there is stuff that 39 00:01:33,569 --> 00:01:36,790 other listeners wanna hear, like, let us know 40 00:01:37,010 --> 00:01:38,629 because we would love to 41 00:01:39,090 --> 00:01:41,265 know what others are interested in that maybe 42 00:01:41,265 --> 00:01:42,744 we haven't covered or haven't covered in a 43 00:01:42,744 --> 00:01:44,744 while outside of AI. LinkedIn is the best 44 00:01:44,744 --> 00:01:46,265 place to let us know, or you if 45 00:01:46,265 --> 00:01:48,265 you're looking for something a little more anonymous, 46 00:01:48,265 --> 00:01:49,724 we have a contact us form, 47 00:01:50,104 --> 00:01:52,045 m s cloud I t pro dot com. 48 00:01:52,424 --> 00:01:54,665 Re reach out and let us know what's 49 00:01:54,665 --> 00:01:56,400 on your mind. To your point about, like, 50 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:57,840 the news Or I couldn't find us at 51 00:01:57,840 --> 00:01:59,840 a conference. Like, we've done some interviews. We 52 00:01:59,840 --> 00:02:02,079 have some coming, but this was on the 53 00:02:02,079 --> 00:02:04,799 recording before it crashed, is we'll be at 54 00:02:04,799 --> 00:02:06,640 MVP Summit. So if you're an MVP and 55 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:08,719 wanna talk to us about something or have 56 00:02:08,719 --> 00:02:09,219 something, 57 00:02:09,635 --> 00:02:11,794 find both of us at MVP Summit. I'll 58 00:02:11,794 --> 00:02:13,715 be down in Orlando at the m three 59 00:02:13,715 --> 00:02:14,534 sixty five 60 00:02:15,155 --> 00:02:15,655 conference 61 00:02:16,115 --> 00:02:16,615 in 62 00:02:17,555 --> 00:02:20,435 April. So, yeah, that's another way you can 63 00:02:20,435 --> 00:02:22,194 find out a find reach out to us, 64 00:02:22,194 --> 00:02:23,715 talk to us, tell us what you want 65 00:02:23,715 --> 00:02:25,509 us to talk about. Sorry. Now I'll let 66 00:02:25,509 --> 00:02:27,610 you talk, Scott. So you had mentioned kinda 67 00:02:28,069 --> 00:02:29,909 news is slow. There's not a lot of 68 00:02:29,909 --> 00:02:32,709 new features, thing things like that coming. We 69 00:02:32,709 --> 00:02:34,709 keep ending up on this AI thing. But 70 00:02:34,709 --> 00:02:37,449 I think for me, what I'm finding is 71 00:02:37,985 --> 00:02:41,205 I'm also using these tools more and more, 72 00:02:41,344 --> 00:02:42,705 more and more in my day to day 73 00:02:42,705 --> 00:02:43,205 life. 74 00:02:43,745 --> 00:02:45,504 And That's fair. And a lot of that 75 00:02:45,504 --> 00:02:47,525 is definitely a function of 76 00:02:47,824 --> 00:02:48,564 my role 77 00:02:48,944 --> 00:02:50,944 in running through things, but I think you 78 00:02:50,944 --> 00:02:52,884 use these tools a whole bunch too. 79 00:02:53,230 --> 00:02:55,230 And I've been on this path lately where 80 00:02:55,230 --> 00:02:57,330 I even see lots of, 81 00:02:57,950 --> 00:02:58,450 like, 82 00:02:58,830 --> 00:03:00,750 sorry, the normals out there, like, big air 83 00:03:00,750 --> 00:03:02,909 quotes, like, the normal people who aren't in 84 00:03:02,909 --> 00:03:04,590 tech who are also using these things. Like, 85 00:03:04,590 --> 00:03:05,730 I was having a conversation, 86 00:03:06,604 --> 00:03:08,925 over the weekend. We went to it was 87 00:03:08,925 --> 00:03:10,284 Super Bowl, so we went to a Super 88 00:03:10,284 --> 00:03:12,145 Bowl party. So I was having a conversation 89 00:03:12,205 --> 00:03:14,364 with somebody, and they go, oh, hey. Like, 90 00:03:14,364 --> 00:03:16,224 you're at Microsoft, this Copilot, 91 00:03:16,764 --> 00:03:19,489 AI stuff, blah blah blah. I use ChatGPT, 92 00:03:20,269 --> 00:03:22,689 and I'm paying $20 a month for it. 93 00:03:22,829 --> 00:03:25,389 Is there anything better? I've heard about I 94 00:03:25,389 --> 00:03:27,569 I heard about ClaudeBot, which then 95 00:03:27,870 --> 00:03:30,349 became Maultbot, which then became OpenClaw, blah blah. 96 00:03:30,349 --> 00:03:31,789 Like, in the news kind of thing, should 97 00:03:31,789 --> 00:03:33,855 I do that? And I was like, I'm 98 00:03:33,855 --> 00:03:35,375 of the opinion at this point that if 99 00:03:35,375 --> 00:03:35,875 you're 100 00:03:36,175 --> 00:03:38,254 not in, like, the m three sixty five 101 00:03:38,254 --> 00:03:40,415 ecosystem and, like, you're not doing, like, Microsoft 102 00:03:40,415 --> 00:03:43,055 Copilot, things like that, and you're just looking 103 00:03:43,055 --> 00:03:45,794 for, like, general, like, AI chat for business, 104 00:03:45,855 --> 00:03:46,355 like, 105 00:03:47,180 --> 00:03:49,020 man, if you're gonna spend $20 on something, 106 00:03:49,020 --> 00:03:50,080 spend it on Claude. 107 00:03:50,379 --> 00:03:52,080 Like, switch what you're doing with ChatGPT 108 00:03:52,939 --> 00:03:54,540 and push over to Claude where you have 109 00:03:54,540 --> 00:03:55,520 access to 110 00:03:56,060 --> 00:03:58,620 all these tools even in, like, their $20 111 00:03:58,620 --> 00:04:00,300 a month plan. So you get, like, Claude 112 00:04:00,300 --> 00:04:00,800 Cowork 113 00:04:01,544 --> 00:04:03,784 as part of Claude Pro. You get access 114 00:04:03,784 --> 00:04:06,025 to MCP servers. Like, we still don't have, 115 00:04:06,025 --> 00:04:08,585 like, broad access to, like, local MCP servers 116 00:04:08,585 --> 00:04:09,485 within ChatGPT. 117 00:04:10,104 --> 00:04:13,145 You cert ChatGPT desktop, I'm talking about, or, 118 00:04:13,939 --> 00:04:17,139 Copilot desktop. Microsoft three sixty five. So these 119 00:04:17,139 --> 00:04:18,519 things become super powerful. 120 00:04:18,980 --> 00:04:20,740 But then the geek in me has also, 121 00:04:20,740 --> 00:04:22,420 like, turned and I don't know how this 122 00:04:22,420 --> 00:04:23,620 is going for you. So I've been on 123 00:04:23,620 --> 00:04:25,480 this natural progression of 124 00:04:26,035 --> 00:04:27,735 things like Claude or ChatGPT 125 00:04:28,754 --> 00:04:31,954 or Copilot just through their desktop interfaces and 126 00:04:31,954 --> 00:04:33,795 doing that, and then kind of moving I 127 00:04:33,795 --> 00:04:35,814 started moving a bunch of stuff over, 128 00:04:36,194 --> 00:04:38,295 what, the past two, three months maybe 129 00:04:38,759 --> 00:04:40,860 into Versus Code where 130 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:42,539 I could have native access 131 00:04:43,079 --> 00:04:45,720 to MCP servers. But then I got to 132 00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:47,319 this point where and I I've been chatting 133 00:04:47,319 --> 00:04:49,000 about this with a couple of people too. 134 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:50,680 I've gotten to this point where I'm opening 135 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:52,394 Versus Code, but a lot of the things 136 00:04:52,394 --> 00:04:54,735 that I do are kinda aggregations 137 00:04:55,435 --> 00:04:57,375 and chats that go between MCPs. 138 00:04:57,995 --> 00:04:59,834 I wanna run them in different models, things 139 00:04:59,834 --> 00:05:01,534 like that, but I don't need full access 140 00:05:01,675 --> 00:05:02,175 to 141 00:05:02,634 --> 00:05:05,514 Versus Code. Like, I'm in this window that 142 00:05:05,514 --> 00:05:07,350 has takes up a big portion of my 143 00:05:07,350 --> 00:05:08,949 screen, and I'm using, like, a little slice 144 00:05:08,949 --> 00:05:10,949 of the window for the agent chat, things 145 00:05:10,949 --> 00:05:12,790 like that. So I've started moving from the 146 00:05:12,790 --> 00:05:15,209 agent chat into the CLIs. 147 00:05:15,829 --> 00:05:18,169 And I've been playing around with Cloud Code, 148 00:05:18,584 --> 00:05:19,084 Gemini 149 00:05:19,545 --> 00:05:22,904 code, Gemini CLI, and then you've also got 150 00:05:22,904 --> 00:05:26,584 GitHub Copilot CLI that sits out there and 151 00:05:26,584 --> 00:05:27,084 is 152 00:05:27,785 --> 00:05:29,545 and is an option ready to go. So 153 00:05:29,545 --> 00:05:30,524 I'm kinda using 154 00:05:31,110 --> 00:05:33,509 GitHub Copilot CLI at work in my day 155 00:05:33,509 --> 00:05:35,930 to day job, and then I I subscribe 156 00:05:35,990 --> 00:05:37,750 to Cloud Pro. I think you do as 157 00:05:37,750 --> 00:05:38,250 well. 158 00:05:38,629 --> 00:05:40,389 So, you know, kinda Cloud Code, but then 159 00:05:40,389 --> 00:05:42,230 I've also been playing around even with just 160 00:05:42,230 --> 00:05:44,970 Gemini code with the free version of Gemini 161 00:05:45,105 --> 00:05:47,105 and some of the like the Gemini fast 162 00:05:47,105 --> 00:05:49,025 and things like that that are available out 163 00:05:49,025 --> 00:05:50,705 there. So I think it'd be fun to 164 00:05:50,705 --> 00:05:52,305 just kind of talk through, like, how we're 165 00:05:52,305 --> 00:05:53,845 using these things and 166 00:05:54,225 --> 00:05:56,145 what you're kind of finding in your day 167 00:05:56,145 --> 00:05:58,800 to day. I know for me, like, I'm 168 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:01,839 actually really having fun going back to terminal 169 00:06:01,839 --> 00:06:04,000 life. It reminds me of like being like 170 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:05,920 my career like twenty years ago when I 171 00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:06,420 started 172 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:07,699 doing like 173 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:10,240 Raul deployments, and I was in Linux land 174 00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:11,379 for customers and 175 00:06:11,785 --> 00:06:14,185 having fun there. So I figured maybe we 176 00:06:14,185 --> 00:06:16,904 start with, like, Cloud Code and what we're 177 00:06:16,904 --> 00:06:18,824 doing, like, with that, and then I can 178 00:06:18,824 --> 00:06:20,504 talk a little bit about maybe, like, GitHub 179 00:06:20,504 --> 00:06:22,345 Copilot CLI and what I'm seeing there because 180 00:06:22,345 --> 00:06:23,625 I don't think you've played around with that 181 00:06:23,625 --> 00:06:25,485 one too much. No. I haven't done Copilot 182 00:06:25,545 --> 00:06:27,084 CLI much. I've been, 183 00:06:28,079 --> 00:06:29,459 if you're one of my customers, 184 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:32,479 don't hate me, but Microsoft three sixty five 185 00:06:32,479 --> 00:06:34,019 Copilot has its advantages. 186 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:37,360 I'm spending way more time in Claude to 187 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:39,039 the point of I had this discussion with 188 00:06:39,039 --> 00:06:40,644 somebody earlier today. 189 00:06:40,944 --> 00:06:43,264 I have Microsoft three sixty five Copilot as 190 00:06:43,264 --> 00:06:45,345 part of I can't remember where it came 191 00:06:45,345 --> 00:06:48,384 from, but I would probably still pay $30 192 00:06:48,384 --> 00:06:49,504 a month for it. I get a few 193 00:06:49,504 --> 00:06:52,464 licenses for free through different partnerships and some 194 00:06:52,464 --> 00:06:54,980 of that. But the other day, I actually 195 00:06:54,980 --> 00:06:57,620 just upgraded beyond the $20 a month plan 196 00:06:57,620 --> 00:06:59,540 for Claude to the $100 a month plan 197 00:06:59,540 --> 00:07:01,699 for Claude. Oh, you've gone there. I haven't 198 00:07:01,699 --> 00:07:03,779 gone there yet. I have gone there. I 199 00:07:03,779 --> 00:07:06,634 have absolutely gone there. And I, like, I 200 00:07:06,634 --> 00:07:09,035 legitimately have tried to get Copilot to do 201 00:07:09,035 --> 00:07:10,654 some of this stuff, and 202 00:07:11,274 --> 00:07:13,274 it's gonna be interesting to see how this 203 00:07:13,274 --> 00:07:14,894 all plays out over the next year. 204 00:07:15,194 --> 00:07:18,735 But I have found way more benefits 205 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:22,439 in Claude and even capabilities. So I'll give 206 00:07:22,439 --> 00:07:24,360 you an example talking about how we're using 207 00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:25,659 it. Going into 208 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:27,500 kind of the first 209 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:30,599 example was in what pushed me to the 210 00:07:30,599 --> 00:07:33,099 $100 plan. I was working on a presentation, 211 00:07:33,399 --> 00:07:33,899 and 212 00:07:34,294 --> 00:07:36,214 I had the presentation all done. I went 213 00:07:36,214 --> 00:07:38,615 into my slides and did, like, bullet points. 214 00:07:38,615 --> 00:07:40,694 So it was the first two or three 215 00:07:40,694 --> 00:07:42,935 slides, then I had, like, five or six 216 00:07:42,935 --> 00:07:46,774 slides of just black and white bullet points. 217 00:07:46,774 --> 00:07:48,535 This is what I wanna talk about, and 218 00:07:48,535 --> 00:07:50,530 then, like, the outro slide. So the intro 219 00:07:50,530 --> 00:07:52,210 slide had some of the theming, some of 220 00:07:52,210 --> 00:07:54,210 the pictures on it, all of that. I 221 00:07:54,210 --> 00:07:56,370 actually told Copilot, I'm like, go in and 222 00:07:56,370 --> 00:07:57,670 make my PowerPoint 223 00:07:58,449 --> 00:08:00,850 look good. Like, keep the colors from the 224 00:08:00,850 --> 00:08:03,030 banner, keep the colors from the header. 225 00:08:03,410 --> 00:08:05,925 Just clean up those bullet point slides to 226 00:08:05,925 --> 00:08:07,925 make them kinda match the theme on the 227 00:08:07,925 --> 00:08:10,805 beginning and closing slides, rearrange the text. Like, 228 00:08:10,805 --> 00:08:12,324 I want it to look good. I can 229 00:08:12,324 --> 00:08:13,605 come up with the content. I'm not a 230 00:08:13,605 --> 00:08:16,725 designer. And the first pass, it came up 231 00:08:16,725 --> 00:08:19,360 with something just completely off the wall. Didn't 232 00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:21,279 match any of the colors. Just it didn't 233 00:08:21,279 --> 00:08:21,779 work. 234 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:23,439 And then I tried it two or three 235 00:08:23,439 --> 00:08:25,699 more times, and it actually wasn't changing anything. 236 00:08:25,839 --> 00:08:27,759 I went in and did the exact same 237 00:08:27,759 --> 00:08:28,740 thing with 238 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:32,080 Claude. I can't remember if I used Claude 239 00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:32,580 code 240 00:08:32,959 --> 00:08:34,179 and used the CLI 241 00:08:34,794 --> 00:08:36,475 version of it because then I can point 242 00:08:36,475 --> 00:08:38,815 it to, like, the physical PowerPoint presentation 243 00:08:39,595 --> 00:08:41,934 on that was synced down via OneDrive 244 00:08:42,475 --> 00:08:44,014 or if I did it in the desktop 245 00:08:44,075 --> 00:08:46,154 chat, but I ran out of tokens when 246 00:08:46,154 --> 00:08:48,794 it was trying to process the PowerPoint and 247 00:08:48,794 --> 00:08:50,550 reformat it. So I just paid to upgrade. 248 00:08:50,550 --> 00:08:51,590 I'm like, you know what? Let's just see 249 00:08:51,590 --> 00:08:53,509 what this does. It did a really good 250 00:08:53,509 --> 00:08:55,830 job. Like, all I had to do was 251 00:08:55,830 --> 00:08:58,009 go in and adjust some font sizes. Like, 252 00:08:58,070 --> 00:09:01,269 colors were different shades, matched the banner. Everything 253 00:09:01,269 --> 00:09:04,304 was formatted nice. It split stuff up into 254 00:09:04,304 --> 00:09:06,384 two columns where it made sense. It put 255 00:09:06,384 --> 00:09:08,084 little icons in there. 256 00:09:08,464 --> 00:09:09,904 Yeah. I know I should be talking about 257 00:09:09,904 --> 00:09:12,784 my accessories as FabQuote, but it yeah. Claude 258 00:09:12,784 --> 00:09:15,184 did way better. That PowerPoint add in, it's 259 00:09:15,184 --> 00:09:17,580 in beta. They released a I can't remember. 260 00:09:17,580 --> 00:09:19,100 It feels like a Yes. It might have 261 00:09:19,100 --> 00:09:20,379 been a little while ago, but it is 262 00:09:20,379 --> 00:09:22,460 a good one. I did not I didn't 263 00:09:22,460 --> 00:09:24,059 even use the plugin. I couldn't get the 264 00:09:24,059 --> 00:09:25,660 plugin to work yet, so I just did 265 00:09:25,660 --> 00:09:27,500 it in native Claude, but I wanna try 266 00:09:27,500 --> 00:09:29,100 the plugin because I have one for Excel 267 00:09:29,100 --> 00:09:31,100 and one for PowerPoint now. It's an interesting 268 00:09:31,100 --> 00:09:32,495 one. So I think that's one of the 269 00:09:32,495 --> 00:09:35,634 nice things about when I think about Claude 270 00:09:35,774 --> 00:09:38,815 in particular, like as a desktop experience, like 271 00:09:38,815 --> 00:09:40,274 Claude desktop automatically, 272 00:09:40,735 --> 00:09:42,335 you can just go flip the switch and 273 00:09:42,335 --> 00:09:43,475 have desktop integrations 274 00:09:44,210 --> 00:09:45,110 and things like 275 00:09:45,490 --> 00:09:48,230 that. You can do similar things, yes, with, 276 00:09:49,490 --> 00:09:51,990 with ChatGPT as well on on the desktop. 277 00:09:52,450 --> 00:09:54,129 But some things like m three sixty five 278 00:09:54,129 --> 00:09:56,370 Copilot, like, they're very much built around, like, 279 00:09:56,370 --> 00:09:58,870 hey, use my files that are already stored 280 00:09:59,345 --> 00:10:01,605 up in SharePoint or in OneDrive, 281 00:10:02,144 --> 00:10:04,065 things like that. So it's a little bit 282 00:10:04,065 --> 00:10:05,924 of, like, a disaggregated experience 283 00:10:06,545 --> 00:10:08,785 there. So one of the cool things you 284 00:10:08,785 --> 00:10:12,085 do with, like, Claude or, like, particularly on 285 00:10:12,779 --> 00:10:13,279 Claude 286 00:10:13,740 --> 00:10:15,899 code on the desktop side is just go 287 00:10:15,899 --> 00:10:17,899 fire up a terminal, and you can do 288 00:10:17,899 --> 00:10:20,620 things like say, hey, create maybe you've got 289 00:10:20,620 --> 00:10:21,679 like a bunch of markdown 290 00:10:22,059 --> 00:10:23,820 or a bunch of other like artifacts that 291 00:10:23,820 --> 00:10:25,179 you're gonna build into something, you can just 292 00:10:25,179 --> 00:10:26,924 point it at those. It can enumerate your 293 00:10:26,924 --> 00:10:28,705 file system, pick those back up, 294 00:10:29,085 --> 00:10:32,284 get you into a good starting space. The 295 00:10:32,284 --> 00:10:33,725 other cool thing you can do with Claude, 296 00:10:33,725 --> 00:10:35,804 particularly with the these things, I guess, we 297 00:10:35,804 --> 00:10:37,644 get into talking about the CLIs, is you 298 00:10:37,644 --> 00:10:39,745 have these concepts of things around, like, 299 00:10:40,049 --> 00:10:43,409 agents and sub agents and skills and different 300 00:10:43,409 --> 00:10:45,490 plugins and different MCPs that you can bring 301 00:10:45,490 --> 00:10:47,570 in. But you could potentially, like, go and 302 00:10:47,570 --> 00:10:49,009 create like, if you're doing this all the 303 00:10:49,009 --> 00:10:51,269 time, hey. I'm creating PowerPoint presentations 304 00:10:51,649 --> 00:10:52,149 for 305 00:10:52,664 --> 00:10:54,985 maybe customers around the same things, things like 306 00:10:54,985 --> 00:10:56,585 that, you could go and create yourself an 307 00:10:56,585 --> 00:10:58,825 agent where an agent is just a markdown 308 00:10:58,825 --> 00:11:01,245 file that just describes the set of functionality 309 00:11:01,384 --> 00:11:03,384 that I want this thing to do. Hey, 310 00:11:03,384 --> 00:11:04,845 go create an agent for 311 00:11:05,339 --> 00:11:08,399 maybe PowerPoint presentations on the value of IntelliJunk, 312 00:11:08,620 --> 00:11:09,980 and then you can go and spin that 313 00:11:09,980 --> 00:11:12,699 for customer by customer or have agents compete 314 00:11:12,699 --> 00:11:14,940 with each other. Like, it it it's really 315 00:11:14,940 --> 00:11:17,500 cool stuff. My my only limitation, I'm a 316 00:11:17,500 --> 00:11:20,059 little jealous that I've created, is the $100 317 00:11:20,059 --> 00:11:23,154 plan, is burning through the tokens very fast. 318 00:11:23,695 --> 00:11:24,754 And it does 319 00:11:25,455 --> 00:11:27,134 burn through the tokens. So I just did 320 00:11:27,134 --> 00:11:27,634 something 321 00:11:27,935 --> 00:11:29,695 kinda where we were getting ready for this. 322 00:11:29,695 --> 00:11:31,055 And this is one of the nice things 323 00:11:31,055 --> 00:11:32,355 I like about the CLI 324 00:11:32,779 --> 00:11:34,879 is you can go see your context usage, 325 00:11:34,940 --> 00:11:37,340 how many tokens you're using. So I have 326 00:11:37,340 --> 00:11:40,080 some MCP servers. So I popped open 327 00:11:40,620 --> 00:11:42,160 Cloud Code, CLI, 328 00:11:42,779 --> 00:11:43,919 and just ran, 329 00:11:44,299 --> 00:11:46,254 like, two or three, 330 00:11:47,035 --> 00:11:49,355 just asked two or three questions, like, overdue 331 00:11:49,355 --> 00:11:51,035 tasks and it goes and pulls them from 332 00:11:51,035 --> 00:11:54,154 Asana using the Asana MCP server. It goes 333 00:11:54,154 --> 00:11:57,090 in and I asked for, like, emails that 334 00:11:57,090 --> 00:11:58,529 I got in the last week, and it 335 00:11:58,529 --> 00:12:01,330 used the WorkIQ MCP server. And I asked 336 00:12:01,330 --> 00:12:02,690 it about meeting notes and Notion, and it 337 00:12:02,690 --> 00:12:05,250 used the Notion MCP server. I have content 338 00:12:05,250 --> 00:12:06,389 in all three of those. 339 00:12:06,769 --> 00:12:08,149 That alone between 340 00:12:08,769 --> 00:12:09,269 the 341 00:12:09,884 --> 00:12:12,304 prompts, loading the MCP tools, 342 00:12:12,605 --> 00:12:14,365 I do have some custom skills that I've 343 00:12:14,365 --> 00:12:15,965 created in the CLI that we can talk 344 00:12:15,965 --> 00:12:18,165 about. And the prompts, like, I ran it 345 00:12:18,205 --> 00:12:21,165 went ran, like, the slash context to see 346 00:12:21,165 --> 00:12:23,085 just how much those three questions, all the 347 00:12:23,085 --> 00:12:25,529 MCP servers, and everything took up. And I'm 348 00:12:25,529 --> 00:12:27,629 already at 63,000 349 00:12:28,089 --> 00:12:30,830 of my 2,000 token or 200,000. 350 00:12:30,889 --> 00:12:31,929 63,000 351 00:12:31,929 --> 00:12:33,549 of the 200,000 tokens, 352 00:12:34,409 --> 00:12:35,709 for that particular 353 00:12:36,409 --> 00:12:38,705 context window before it needs to go in 354 00:12:38,705 --> 00:12:40,784 and do things like starting to auto compact 355 00:12:40,784 --> 00:12:43,424 the buffer and compact the conversations and do 356 00:12:43,424 --> 00:12:45,924 some of that to make additional rooms. So 357 00:12:46,144 --> 00:12:49,105 I do like that about the CLI too 358 00:12:49,105 --> 00:12:50,004 that I can 359 00:12:50,319 --> 00:12:52,240 get some of that and even see it 360 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:54,500 tells me how much of my context window 361 00:12:54,799 --> 00:12:57,199 am I using for system prompts, for system 362 00:12:57,199 --> 00:12:59,940 tools, for MCP tools, for skills, for messages, 363 00:13:00,799 --> 00:13:03,120 save some for the compaction, and then how 364 00:13:03,120 --> 00:13:05,024 much free space I have left. I've noticed 365 00:13:05,105 --> 00:13:07,684 it starts to drive me in different directions 366 00:13:07,745 --> 00:13:10,305 for some of these things, like token compaction. 367 00:13:10,305 --> 00:13:12,805 Like, hey. Let me save off this session 368 00:13:12,945 --> 00:13:15,345 or a specific subset of what was done 369 00:13:15,345 --> 00:13:16,945 in this session to, like, just just a 370 00:13:16,945 --> 00:13:18,865 markdown file. Like, hey. Just spit this out 371 00:13:18,865 --> 00:13:20,225 to a directory and have it come over 372 00:13:20,225 --> 00:13:22,519 for me, and then be able to reuse 373 00:13:22,519 --> 00:13:24,539 those sessions, save yourself tokens 374 00:13:24,919 --> 00:13:26,460 on spinning up the next one, 375 00:13:26,840 --> 00:13:29,659 things like that. So so I'm kinda interested. 376 00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:30,700 You said 377 00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:32,620 you're using MCPs, 378 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:35,480 it sounds like, and kinda wrangling things together. 379 00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:37,695 Folks definitely go check out the WorkIQ MCP 380 00:13:37,695 --> 00:13:39,215 if they haven't done that yet and you're 381 00:13:39,215 --> 00:13:41,615 in the m three sixty five ecosystem. But 382 00:13:41,615 --> 00:13:42,595 you're using MCPs 383 00:13:43,295 --> 00:13:46,434 and kinda maybe wrangling that between various 384 00:13:46,975 --> 00:13:49,009 various models that are out there. Have you 385 00:13:49,009 --> 00:13:51,669 started playing around with, like, agents and skills 386 00:13:51,730 --> 00:13:52,789 or plug ins, 387 00:13:53,090 --> 00:13:55,409 any of that stuff? I've done some stuff 388 00:13:55,409 --> 00:13:58,549 with plug ins and skills. Agents are kinda 389 00:13:59,250 --> 00:14:00,629 next up on my list. 390 00:14:01,024 --> 00:14:02,785 But I would say from the plugins and 391 00:14:02,785 --> 00:14:03,684 skills perspective, 392 00:14:03,985 --> 00:14:04,725 I actually 393 00:14:05,184 --> 00:14:06,725 went in, and this is another 394 00:14:07,105 --> 00:14:08,384 cool thing. And I think you can do 395 00:14:08,384 --> 00:14:11,424 this with Visual Studio Copilot too. But I 396 00:14:11,424 --> 00:14:12,565 actually created 397 00:14:13,105 --> 00:14:13,924 my own 398 00:14:14,519 --> 00:14:17,340 custom plugins. So I created, like, Ben Stedjink's 399 00:14:17,560 --> 00:14:20,040 Claude plugins Yep. And published it out to 400 00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:22,759 GitHub repo. It's a private GitHub repo. And 401 00:14:22,759 --> 00:14:24,300 then in that plugin, 402 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:25,660 I created 403 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:27,899 a, like, a Ben Stedjink 404 00:14:28,279 --> 00:14:29,340 core plugin, 405 00:14:29,865 --> 00:14:32,825 just an overall core plug in, and then 406 00:14:32,825 --> 00:14:35,625 an intelligent core plug in or skill. So 407 00:14:35,705 --> 00:14:37,705 or no. Those are those are technically plug 408 00:14:37,705 --> 00:14:39,784 ins. And then inside of those different plug 409 00:14:39,784 --> 00:14:42,105 ins, I put skills. So, like, inside of 410 00:14:42,105 --> 00:14:43,945 the Ben Stedjink plug in, I have a 411 00:14:43,945 --> 00:14:46,720 skill for my voice and my tone and 412 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:49,279 different things I wanna do or things I 413 00:14:49,279 --> 00:14:52,399 want to do. Like, I never use em 414 00:14:52,399 --> 00:14:54,960 dashes or frankly any dashes in any of 415 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:57,644 my responses or anything I type ever. So 416 00:14:57,644 --> 00:14:59,485 in that skill, I'm like, just don't ever 417 00:14:59,485 --> 00:15:01,725 use em dashes. I don't use em dashes 418 00:15:01,725 --> 00:15:04,045 and dashes. It shouldn't be in anything that 419 00:15:04,045 --> 00:15:05,884 I ask you to generate for me. Like 420 00:15:05,884 --> 00:15:08,045 my core one, I went in and I 421 00:15:08,045 --> 00:15:09,264 created a whole, 422 00:15:10,045 --> 00:15:11,105 like, dictionary 423 00:15:11,620 --> 00:15:14,340 of Microsoft three sixty five terms. So m 424 00:15:14,340 --> 00:15:16,820 three sixty five is also Microsoft three sixty 425 00:15:16,820 --> 00:15:18,980 five. Office o three sixty five is Office 426 00:15:18,980 --> 00:15:22,660 three sixty five. AIP is equivalent to whatever 427 00:15:22,660 --> 00:15:23,879 they're calling it today. 428 00:15:24,674 --> 00:15:26,754 So that as I'm going in and maybe 429 00:15:26,754 --> 00:15:27,735 using different 430 00:15:28,035 --> 00:15:30,674 acronyms in my typing, it Claude can go 431 00:15:30,674 --> 00:15:32,595 in and kinda translate that to maybe the 432 00:15:32,595 --> 00:15:34,514 official definition or if I'm using the official 433 00:15:34,514 --> 00:15:36,514 one, it knows what the acronyms are for 434 00:15:36,514 --> 00:15:38,990 it. And then IntelliJinx, something similar to the 435 00:15:38,990 --> 00:15:40,690 Ben Stedjink one is 436 00:15:41,070 --> 00:15:43,709 maybe I wanna use IntelliJinx tends to be 437 00:15:43,709 --> 00:15:45,950 a little bit more professional, where Ben Stedjink 438 00:15:45,950 --> 00:15:47,549 tends to be a little bit more casual 439 00:15:47,549 --> 00:15:48,289 and conversational 440 00:15:48,830 --> 00:15:50,450 so that as I'm using 441 00:15:51,149 --> 00:15:52,129 Claude code, 442 00:15:52,464 --> 00:15:53,445 clogged in the CLI, 443 00:15:53,904 --> 00:15:56,464 to generate all this different stuff, because at 444 00:15:56,464 --> 00:15:58,625 this point in time, it's it is clogged 445 00:15:58,625 --> 00:15:59,825 code, but I use it for way more 446 00:15:59,825 --> 00:16:01,504 than coding. I just use it for all 447 00:16:01,504 --> 00:16:02,884 kinds of stuff in the CLI. 448 00:16:03,264 --> 00:16:03,924 It can 449 00:16:04,384 --> 00:16:04,884 know 450 00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:08,680 those different characteristics, those different traits, how I 451 00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:09,740 want it to behave 452 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:13,420 using those different skills, writing styles. 453 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:16,279 Oh, I put, like, background in there, professional 454 00:16:16,279 --> 00:16:17,500 background of IntelliJinc, 455 00:16:17,800 --> 00:16:19,754 my personal professional background, 456 00:16:20,215 --> 00:16:22,394 all those different things in these various 457 00:16:22,855 --> 00:16:25,115 skills. They're all bundled up in this plugin. 458 00:16:25,575 --> 00:16:26,315 And then 459 00:16:26,695 --> 00:16:29,195 for me, the nice thing about this and 460 00:16:29,254 --> 00:16:30,455 I did not come up with all of 461 00:16:30,455 --> 00:16:32,340 this to be fair. Andrew Connell and I 462 00:16:32,340 --> 00:16:34,179 were sitting down and talking about all this 463 00:16:34,179 --> 00:16:36,120 the other day, and he kinda got me, 464 00:16:36,500 --> 00:16:39,059 hooked on this too, was because I publish 465 00:16:39,059 --> 00:16:40,039 them up to GitHub, 466 00:16:40,500 --> 00:16:42,660 I can have all these plugins and skills 467 00:16:42,660 --> 00:16:44,419 come down to whatever computer. If I'm sitting 468 00:16:44,419 --> 00:16:46,200 at my desk, if I'm on my laptop, 469 00:16:46,595 --> 00:16:48,195 if I have to format my computer and 470 00:16:48,195 --> 00:16:50,195 wanna bring them all down. And there's even 471 00:16:50,195 --> 00:16:52,615 an update in there to automatically 472 00:16:53,715 --> 00:16:56,674 update these plugins and skills. So whenever I 473 00:16:56,674 --> 00:16:58,274 boot up Claude, it goes and looks at 474 00:16:58,274 --> 00:16:59,654 my private GitHub repo 475 00:17:00,019 --> 00:17:01,240 and will automatically 476 00:17:01,860 --> 00:17:02,360 update 477 00:17:03,460 --> 00:17:06,279 these skills and plugins from my GitHub repo 478 00:17:06,579 --> 00:17:08,279 without me even having to do anything. 479 00:17:09,059 --> 00:17:10,980 So it's super interesting once you start to 480 00:17:10,980 --> 00:17:13,455 kinda get in there, I think, get into 481 00:17:13,674 --> 00:17:14,174 the 482 00:17:14,475 --> 00:17:16,255 ecosystem a little bit of 483 00:17:16,795 --> 00:17:18,735 some of the plugins, the agents, 484 00:17:19,115 --> 00:17:21,515 the the skills, things like that. I I 485 00:17:21,515 --> 00:17:23,375 was really surprised at how 486 00:17:24,235 --> 00:17:26,394 approachable it was. I think maybe I was 487 00:17:26,394 --> 00:17:28,609 a little scared or tentative in the beginning 488 00:17:28,609 --> 00:17:30,529 to go in and go like, oh my 489 00:17:30,529 --> 00:17:33,169 gosh. Like, I have to build something. Like, 490 00:17:33,169 --> 00:17:34,849 I'm so far gone from the days of, 491 00:17:34,849 --> 00:17:37,009 like, coding things myself that, like, I would 492 00:17:37,009 --> 00:17:38,369 need the help of this thing to do 493 00:17:38,369 --> 00:17:39,970 it. But you can go in and you 494 00:17:39,970 --> 00:17:41,945 can do things. Like, yeah, you'll burn some 495 00:17:41,945 --> 00:17:43,865 context and some tokens to get it done, 496 00:17:43,865 --> 00:17:45,065 but you can do things like go in 497 00:17:45,065 --> 00:17:46,285 and say, like, hey. 498 00:17:46,585 --> 00:17:49,144 I want to build a new skill that 499 00:17:49,144 --> 00:17:49,644 does 500 00:17:49,945 --> 00:17:52,265 this and this. Help me stub it out. 501 00:17:52,265 --> 00:17:54,105 And then it'll actually go and create the 502 00:17:54,105 --> 00:17:56,960 skill markdown file for you. It'll generally put 503 00:17:56,960 --> 00:17:58,480 things together, and then you can go and 504 00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:00,320 fill in the details, or you can iterate 505 00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:02,080 on that. Because again, these things have access 506 00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:04,160 to your local desktop, so it's just writing 507 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:06,420 out to markdown files and or 508 00:18:06,799 --> 00:18:08,880 whatever kind of artifact that you have it 509 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:09,585 pushing out, 510 00:18:10,144 --> 00:18:12,404 PowerPoint, for example, and having that 511 00:18:12,704 --> 00:18:14,325 get to where it needs to be. So 512 00:18:14,704 --> 00:18:16,085 it's very powerful, 513 00:18:16,464 --> 00:18:18,144 and you can kind of walk this chain. 514 00:18:18,144 --> 00:18:19,204 So when I started, 515 00:18:19,585 --> 00:18:22,224 because I was coming over from Versus Code 516 00:18:22,224 --> 00:18:24,390 land where I was living so much in 517 00:18:24,390 --> 00:18:26,869 GitHub Copilot and kind of the agent chat 518 00:18:26,869 --> 00:18:29,350 mode in Versus Code, I actually started by 519 00:18:29,350 --> 00:18:31,690 bringing things over like my Copilot instructions. 520 00:18:33,029 --> 00:18:34,809 Those were just directly translatable 521 00:18:35,269 --> 00:18:36,869 to bringing them over as kind of like 522 00:18:36,869 --> 00:18:38,090 a subset of instructions 523 00:18:38,825 --> 00:18:40,904 and either a global set or like a 524 00:18:40,904 --> 00:18:42,664 per project kind of set like you were 525 00:18:42,664 --> 00:18:43,404 talking about 526 00:18:43,865 --> 00:18:45,865 in Claude. And then the nice thing is, 527 00:18:45,865 --> 00:18:47,224 if you start to get into some of 528 00:18:47,224 --> 00:18:49,305 the other CLI ecosystems that are out there, 529 00:18:49,305 --> 00:18:51,325 like let's say you are a GitHub Copilot 530 00:18:51,384 --> 00:18:54,000 subscriber or using GitHub Copilot for free, there's 531 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:55,619 a GitHub Copilot CLI. 532 00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:56,500 Works 533 00:18:56,799 --> 00:18:58,420 very similar to the 534 00:18:58,799 --> 00:19:01,839 Cloud Code CLI to the point where you 535 00:19:01,839 --> 00:19:03,440 get an agents.md, 536 00:19:03,440 --> 00:19:05,200 and you get skills, and you get plugins, 537 00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:06,579 and you get MCP integrations. 538 00:19:07,174 --> 00:19:08,934 It turns out Gemini is the same way. 539 00:19:08,934 --> 00:19:12,214 So Gemini has a Gemini CLI as well. 540 00:19:12,214 --> 00:19:14,054 So if you're a Gemini subscriber and you're 541 00:19:14,054 --> 00:19:15,335 using that, or even if you're not a 542 00:19:15,335 --> 00:19:17,095 subscriber and you're just using kinda like the 543 00:19:17,095 --> 00:19:18,775 free versions of these, you can still tie 544 00:19:18,775 --> 00:19:20,789 them in and get going with them. So 545 00:19:20,789 --> 00:19:23,029 the funny thing is like Gemini CLI, like 546 00:19:23,029 --> 00:19:24,569 it does a Gemini. Md 547 00:19:24,869 --> 00:19:27,829 or Claude does like Claude. Md, things like 548 00:19:27,829 --> 00:19:29,429 that when you're in Cloud Code. But if 549 00:19:29,429 --> 00:19:31,109 you go into this ecosystem, like if you 550 00:19:31,109 --> 00:19:33,944 go into something like GitHub Copilot CLI, GitHub 551 00:19:33,944 --> 00:19:37,304 Copilot CLI respects claw. Md and gemini. Md 552 00:19:37,304 --> 00:19:39,304 because it knows that you might be using 553 00:19:39,304 --> 00:19:41,244 these things in, like, another ecosystem. 554 00:19:42,265 --> 00:19:44,904 So it's super nifty, like, in in regard 555 00:19:44,904 --> 00:19:46,825 to that and kind of being able to 556 00:19:46,825 --> 00:19:48,525 tie this stuff together. So 557 00:19:48,829 --> 00:19:50,130 if you are out there, 558 00:19:50,430 --> 00:19:52,029 the other thing that's happened, like I said, 559 00:19:52,029 --> 00:19:53,869 is like there's kind of portability between these 560 00:19:53,869 --> 00:19:55,630 things, so you're not locked into one. Like, 561 00:19:55,630 --> 00:19:57,470 you could start, like and I would encourage 562 00:19:57,470 --> 00:19:59,069 somebody, like, if you haven't been hands on 563 00:19:59,069 --> 00:20:00,430 in the terminal with one of these things 564 00:20:00,430 --> 00:20:00,930 today, 565 00:20:01,309 --> 00:20:03,784 go fire up probably Gemini CLI, 566 00:20:04,164 --> 00:20:06,005 a nice easy one to get started with. 567 00:20:06,005 --> 00:20:07,464 You can use Gemini fast, 568 00:20:08,244 --> 00:20:09,444 the one that you get access to for 569 00:20:09,444 --> 00:20:11,044 free. You don't have to pay anything. Kind 570 00:20:11,044 --> 00:20:12,484 of play around with it a little bit, 571 00:20:12,484 --> 00:20:13,924 set it up, see how far you get. 572 00:20:13,924 --> 00:20:15,204 And if you get to the point where 573 00:20:15,204 --> 00:20:16,484 you're like, oh, I wanna go try it 574 00:20:16,484 --> 00:20:19,650 in Claude now, or you're a GitHub Copilot 575 00:20:19,650 --> 00:20:21,329 subscriber, like I said, you can just kind 576 00:20:21,329 --> 00:20:23,970 of bring it over and carry that context 577 00:20:23,970 --> 00:20:25,809 and all these things with you. It's turned 578 00:20:25,809 --> 00:20:27,910 out to be a very kind of powerful 579 00:20:28,450 --> 00:20:30,914 ecosystem. And I find myself like this is 580 00:20:30,994 --> 00:20:32,835 the weird thing to me, is I find 581 00:20:32,835 --> 00:20:34,695 myself living in the CLI now 582 00:20:35,154 --> 00:20:37,815 more than any of the other desktop experiences 583 00:20:37,875 --> 00:20:39,174 that are out there. Like I 584 00:20:40,115 --> 00:20:42,535 don't even open like M365 585 00:20:42,914 --> 00:20:45,909 Copilot anymore, unless I really need to. Like, 586 00:20:45,909 --> 00:20:48,230 I just try and do everything from, like, 587 00:20:48,230 --> 00:20:49,909 in in my case, like, my work stuff, 588 00:20:49,909 --> 00:20:51,450 like GitHub Copilot CLI, 589 00:20:51,990 --> 00:20:53,909 or my personal stuff. It's a mix of 590 00:20:53,909 --> 00:20:55,909 Gemini and Claw depending on what's going on. 591 00:20:55,909 --> 00:20:58,470 It's interesting. I'm curious to see how 592 00:20:59,434 --> 00:21:00,255 where Microsoft 593 00:21:00,634 --> 00:21:02,015 goes with this because 594 00:21:02,795 --> 00:21:04,474 the CLI, like you, I spend way more 595 00:21:04,474 --> 00:21:06,315 time in the CLI. I have a lot 596 00:21:06,315 --> 00:21:07,054 more flexibility 597 00:21:07,355 --> 00:21:09,934 there with loading in different MCP servers. 598 00:21:10,394 --> 00:21:12,974 And like you said, doing stuff with files 599 00:21:13,035 --> 00:21:14,509 on my file system. 600 00:21:15,529 --> 00:21:17,369 I would love to be able to do 601 00:21:17,369 --> 00:21:19,130 some of the same stuff with Microsoft three 602 00:21:19,130 --> 00:21:21,130 sixty five Copilot. Again, especially if it can 603 00:21:21,130 --> 00:21:22,750 save me a $100 a month. 604 00:21:23,769 --> 00:21:24,269 Indeed. 605 00:21:24,970 --> 00:21:28,785 But right now, this it feels like a 606 00:21:28,785 --> 00:21:30,565 huge gap and it's a huge limitation. 607 00:21:31,184 --> 00:21:33,744 And because I'm in one or in the 608 00:21:33,744 --> 00:21:36,065 CLI, I tend to just stay there. The 609 00:21:36,065 --> 00:21:37,684 one thing I would say, like, 610 00:21:38,224 --> 00:21:38,884 from a 611 00:21:39,585 --> 00:21:42,210 Microsoft three sixty five Copilot comparing them, there's 612 00:21:42,210 --> 00:21:44,210 still the security thing I think about too. 613 00:21:44,210 --> 00:21:44,950 Right? Like, 614 00:21:45,250 --> 00:21:47,809 working with client data or, in your case, 615 00:21:47,809 --> 00:21:49,669 working with internal company data, 616 00:21:49,970 --> 00:21:51,730 you do wanna be careful about pulling a 617 00:21:51,730 --> 00:21:53,410 bunch of that out, throwing it up into 618 00:21:53,410 --> 00:21:54,309 Quad or Gemini. 619 00:21:55,115 --> 00:21:57,674 Your company may have restrictions around it. So 620 00:21:57,674 --> 00:21:59,035 I think that's where I would love to 621 00:21:59,035 --> 00:22:01,994 see Microsoft come out with some type of 622 00:22:01,994 --> 00:22:03,775 alternative for this for 623 00:22:04,234 --> 00:22:06,315 the m three sixty five Copilot version of 624 00:22:06,315 --> 00:22:08,955 it, hopefully, before, in my opinion, they fall 625 00:22:08,955 --> 00:22:11,740 too far behind on this particular aspect of 626 00:22:11,740 --> 00:22:13,579 it. We can always talk about other aspects 627 00:22:13,579 --> 00:22:15,500 of it too, but I'm with you. I 628 00:22:15,500 --> 00:22:17,259 would at this point in time, I'd much 629 00:22:17,259 --> 00:22:19,579 rather load a bunch of MCPs into my 630 00:22:19,579 --> 00:22:21,420 CLI than just hang out in the CLI 631 00:22:21,420 --> 00:22:22,940 all day. I've spent more time in the 632 00:22:22,940 --> 00:22:25,855 terminal lately than ever before. Yeah. It's interesting. 633 00:22:25,855 --> 00:22:27,375 I feel like I'm only a throwback to, 634 00:22:27,375 --> 00:22:29,615 like, previous parts of my career, things like 635 00:22:29,615 --> 00:22:30,595 that along the way. 636 00:22:35,055 --> 00:22:37,134 Do you feel overwhelmed by trying to manage 637 00:22:37,134 --> 00:22:39,430 your Office three sixty five environment? Are you 638 00:22:39,430 --> 00:22:42,730 facing unexpected issues that disrupt your company's productivity? 639 00:22:43,029 --> 00:22:44,950 Intelligink is here to help. Much like you 640 00:22:44,950 --> 00:22:46,789 take your car to the mechanic that has 641 00:22:46,789 --> 00:22:48,950 specialized knowledge on how to best keep your 642 00:22:48,950 --> 00:22:51,990 car running, Intelligink helps you with your Microsoft 643 00:22:51,990 --> 00:22:54,250 cloud environment because that's their expertise. 644 00:22:54,815 --> 00:22:56,894 Intelligent keeps up with the latest updates in 645 00:22:56,894 --> 00:22:59,134 the Microsoft cloud to help keep your business 646 00:22:59,134 --> 00:23:01,375 running smoothly and ahead of the curve. Whether 647 00:23:01,375 --> 00:23:03,375 you are a small organization with just a 648 00:23:03,375 --> 00:23:05,855 few users up to an organization of several 649 00:23:05,855 --> 00:23:08,654 thousand employees, they want to partner with you 650 00:23:08,654 --> 00:23:09,954 to implement and administer 651 00:23:10,330 --> 00:23:12,029 your Microsoft cloud technology. 652 00:23:12,730 --> 00:23:16,190 Visit them at inteliginc.com/podcast. 653 00:23:16,410 --> 00:23:23,230 That's intelligink.com/podcast 654 00:23:23,684 --> 00:23:25,684 for more information or to schedule a thirty 655 00:23:25,684 --> 00:23:27,784 minute call to get started with them today. 656 00:23:28,085 --> 00:23:31,444 Remember, Intelligink focuses on the Microsoft cloud so 657 00:23:31,444 --> 00:23:33,144 you can focus on your business. 658 00:23:35,365 --> 00:23:37,569 So I'm curious. Like, these tools are out 659 00:23:37,569 --> 00:23:39,169 there. I think, like, they're they are very 660 00:23:39,169 --> 00:23:40,609 accessible for folks. Like, if you're on a 661 00:23:40,609 --> 00:23:42,529 Mac, you can use Homebrew, you can do 662 00:23:42,529 --> 00:23:44,929 Winget installs. Like, they make it super easy 663 00:23:44,929 --> 00:23:46,450 to to get this stuff spun up. So 664 00:23:46,450 --> 00:23:47,970 if you are like, you wanna play with 665 00:23:47,970 --> 00:23:49,669 it, I think that's easy enough to do. 666 00:23:49,970 --> 00:23:51,669 You mentioned things like PowerPoint. 667 00:23:52,505 --> 00:23:55,625 Is there, like, one business process or, like, 668 00:23:55,625 --> 00:23:57,644 one thing that you've solved that's been 669 00:23:58,105 --> 00:23:58,605 really, 670 00:23:58,985 --> 00:24:01,144 like, really good for you? Like, I can 671 00:24:01,144 --> 00:24:02,744 certainly describe one of my one of mine 672 00:24:02,744 --> 00:24:04,025 in, like, my day to day, but I'm 673 00:24:04,025 --> 00:24:04,525 curious, 674 00:24:04,890 --> 00:24:07,210 like, what's the one thing that's out there 675 00:24:07,210 --> 00:24:08,970 that you've done where it's like, oh, like, 676 00:24:08,970 --> 00:24:10,349 this is a 677 00:24:11,049 --> 00:24:12,910 real accelerator for me, 678 00:24:13,369 --> 00:24:16,190 or it's, like, genuinely, like, augmenting 679 00:24:16,744 --> 00:24:18,345 something else that was a lot of toil 680 00:24:18,345 --> 00:24:20,505 and friction before. One is gonna be just 681 00:24:20,505 --> 00:24:23,325 kind of a bucket. Writing PowerShell scripts, especially 682 00:24:23,384 --> 00:24:24,924 commenting, error checking, 683 00:24:25,545 --> 00:24:26,365 making them 684 00:24:26,664 --> 00:24:29,369 complete rather than, like Making them pretty. 685 00:24:30,250 --> 00:24:32,650 Yeah. Making them pretty and just making them, 686 00:24:32,650 --> 00:24:35,049 I would say, much more functional and that 687 00:24:35,049 --> 00:24:37,069 I can take it from client to client 688 00:24:37,210 --> 00:24:38,970 because it's a whole lot easier to build 689 00:24:38,970 --> 00:24:40,410 it out with a whole bunch of different 690 00:24:40,410 --> 00:24:42,644 parameters and error checking and all of that 691 00:24:42,805 --> 00:24:45,445 versus making them specific to a client and 692 00:24:45,445 --> 00:24:46,964 then having to alter it every time I 693 00:24:46,964 --> 00:24:48,025 go to another client. 694 00:24:48,404 --> 00:24:49,705 That process has 695 00:24:50,164 --> 00:24:50,904 gotten better. 696 00:24:51,205 --> 00:24:53,845 The other one that I did this the 697 00:24:53,845 --> 00:24:55,305 other day and 698 00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:56,660 super nice. 699 00:24:57,039 --> 00:24:59,039 I've I did some I've done some work 700 00:24:59,039 --> 00:25:01,059 for clients where I go in and look 701 00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,240 at their preparation for Copilot. I think we've 702 00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:07,039 talked about this. That PowerShell script, it'll generate 703 00:25:07,039 --> 00:25:07,860 like a CSV 704 00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,140 for every single site that contains 705 00:25:12,055 --> 00:25:14,695 URLs, sharing links, all of that. I was 706 00:25:14,695 --> 00:25:16,455 doing a presentation at it down in Miami 707 00:25:16,455 --> 00:25:18,455 this last weekend, and I'm like, damn, this 708 00:25:18,455 --> 00:25:19,994 would be really nice to 709 00:25:20,615 --> 00:25:21,595 show in the presentation, 710 00:25:22,134 --> 00:25:24,134 but I can't share all of my client 711 00:25:24,134 --> 00:25:25,674 data, usernames, UPNs, 712 00:25:26,455 --> 00:25:26,955 potential 713 00:25:27,569 --> 00:25:30,210 sensitive information where it's like, oh, this has 714 00:25:30,210 --> 00:25:32,369 the site, any of that. Anyways, again, it 715 00:25:32,369 --> 00:25:33,669 was a thousand CSVs. 716 00:25:34,130 --> 00:25:36,130 I actually went into Cloud Code, again, because 717 00:25:36,130 --> 00:25:37,649 it has access to the file system and 718 00:25:37,649 --> 00:25:40,529 said, go look at this folder with all 719 00:25:40,529 --> 00:25:43,414 these CSVs in it. Look for anything with 720 00:25:43,634 --> 00:25:45,815 this client name, this client abbreviation, 721 00:25:46,755 --> 00:25:49,714 anything that looks like it could potentially be 722 00:25:49,714 --> 00:25:50,214 sensitive. 723 00:25:50,674 --> 00:25:51,894 Go find all the usernames 724 00:25:52,275 --> 00:25:55,015 and create a company. Make up a company 725 00:25:55,075 --> 00:25:56,755 and change the company name to a fake 726 00:25:56,755 --> 00:25:59,279 company name. Change all of the usernames to 727 00:25:59,279 --> 00:26:00,099 fake usernames, 728 00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:01,539 change all of 729 00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,940 the FQDNs and all the usernames 730 00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:06,799 to match the company you made up in 731 00:26:06,799 --> 00:26:08,179 the URLs. And 732 00:26:08,559 --> 00:26:09,059 it 733 00:26:09,599 --> 00:26:11,519 what it ended up doing watching in the 734 00:26:11,519 --> 00:26:13,484 CLI, it went in and created, like, five 735 00:26:13,484 --> 00:26:15,505 or six different Python scripts 736 00:26:15,884 --> 00:26:17,884 to go through and analyze all of these 737 00:26:17,884 --> 00:26:20,045 files and update all of them. So it 738 00:26:20,045 --> 00:26:20,545 essentially 739 00:26:21,164 --> 00:26:21,664 anonymized 740 00:26:22,765 --> 00:26:25,265 a thousand different CSV files 741 00:26:25,644 --> 00:26:27,805 so that I felt comfortable using them in 742 00:26:27,805 --> 00:26:28,464 a presentation. 743 00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,680 And while there were, like, some site titles 744 00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:33,539 that were specific to the company, 745 00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:35,920 there was gonna be no way to tie 746 00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,960 them back to who this company actually was. 747 00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,380 So I was able to give real company 748 00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:43,619 data, real data from real projects 749 00:26:43,964 --> 00:26:45,345 that was completely anonymized, 750 00:26:45,964 --> 00:26:47,484 I never would have spent the time to 751 00:26:47,484 --> 00:26:50,204 go update a thousand CSVs even doing find 752 00:26:50,204 --> 00:26:51,505 and replace Never. 753 00:26:53,085 --> 00:26:55,244 Before this. So that was one of mine 754 00:26:55,244 --> 00:26:56,684 the other day that was like, this was 755 00:26:56,845 --> 00:26:58,924 it was awesome. It took maybe thirty or 756 00:26:58,924 --> 00:27:01,940 forty minutes to generate everything, and I went 757 00:27:01,940 --> 00:27:04,659 through a few iterations of, okay. Now go 758 00:27:04,659 --> 00:27:06,819 review it again. Let's go make sure. Let's 759 00:27:06,819 --> 00:27:07,319 go 760 00:27:07,700 --> 00:27:09,940 look for these the spellings. And then I 761 00:27:09,940 --> 00:27:11,539 just ask it, do you see anything else 762 00:27:11,539 --> 00:27:14,634 in there that looks potentially sensitive? And it 763 00:27:14,634 --> 00:27:16,234 would maybe come back with a couple other 764 00:27:16,234 --> 00:27:18,015 things. So it was a conversation, 765 00:27:18,474 --> 00:27:20,554 and it still took an hour, but doing 766 00:27:20,554 --> 00:27:23,615 that manually would have taken, like, a day 767 00:27:23,994 --> 00:27:26,714 Yeah. At least. You mentioned there was another 768 00:27:26,714 --> 00:27:28,474 one as well? Well and then the PowerShell 769 00:27:28,474 --> 00:27:30,150 scripts. Gotcha. Gotcha. It was those two. Alright. 770 00:27:30,230 --> 00:27:31,849 PowerShell scripts and then anonymizing 771 00:27:32,549 --> 00:27:34,890 data have been two of the big ones. 772 00:27:35,109 --> 00:27:37,029 Probably two of the bigger ones, bigger time 773 00:27:37,029 --> 00:27:38,630 savings. Let me talk a little bit maybe 774 00:27:38,630 --> 00:27:40,630 about, like, some of the ones I'm doing, 775 00:27:40,630 --> 00:27:43,769 which are helping me augment business process. 776 00:27:44,505 --> 00:27:45,005 So 777 00:27:45,384 --> 00:27:46,765 the nice thing about LLMs 778 00:27:47,464 --> 00:27:47,964 is 779 00:27:48,904 --> 00:27:51,545 they're very tuned around passing in text, like 780 00:27:51,545 --> 00:27:52,525 things like markdown. 781 00:27:52,984 --> 00:27:53,484 So 782 00:27:53,865 --> 00:27:55,484 I do a lot of 783 00:27:56,025 --> 00:27:58,025 Kusto queries in my day to day job, 784 00:27:58,025 --> 00:27:59,805 and I'm working with various databases. 785 00:28:00,799 --> 00:28:03,380 So one thing is, like, what's the schema 786 00:28:03,519 --> 00:28:05,839 of that database and its tables? Like, what's 787 00:28:05,839 --> 00:28:07,679 the actual schema of the tables, and what 788 00:28:07,679 --> 00:28:08,579 does those represent? 789 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:10,099 So we 790 00:28:10,559 --> 00:28:12,480 we document those things as we build them 791 00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,644 out. We document them in markdown. They go 792 00:28:14,644 --> 00:28:15,845 in a they they go in one of 793 00:28:15,845 --> 00:28:18,505 our internal wikis. So I just went into 794 00:28:18,565 --> 00:28:20,325 that wiki, which is all markdown at the 795 00:28:20,325 --> 00:28:22,644 end of the day. I pulled out that 796 00:28:22,644 --> 00:28:24,884 subset of markdown files that said, here's the 797 00:28:24,884 --> 00:28:26,099 documented schema 798 00:28:26,419 --> 00:28:28,740 for table x, table y, table zed, right, 799 00:28:28,740 --> 00:28:31,240 to, like, walking down the thing. And then 800 00:28:31,380 --> 00:28:34,359 I built a custom agent around that understands 801 00:28:34,740 --> 00:28:36,980 the schema of those things. So when I'm 802 00:28:36,980 --> 00:28:38,599 talking to the Kusto MCP, 803 00:28:39,025 --> 00:28:41,424 the fabric MCP that integrates with Kusto and 804 00:28:41,424 --> 00:28:42,085 all that, 805 00:28:42,545 --> 00:28:43,285 it knows 806 00:28:43,664 --> 00:28:46,704 that when it's talking to this database and 807 00:28:46,704 --> 00:28:49,525 it's interacting with this database, here's the schema 808 00:28:49,664 --> 00:28:51,265 of all these things that are out there. 809 00:28:51,265 --> 00:28:53,859 So that's super powerful. It knows that this 810 00:28:53,859 --> 00:28:55,779 column is this name, and this is a 811 00:28:55,779 --> 00:28:58,259 string. This one's a GUID. Here's what the 812 00:28:58,259 --> 00:29:01,380 GUID represents. Here's the relationship of this GUID, 813 00:29:01,380 --> 00:29:03,779 this identifier maybe to, like, another table so 814 00:29:03,779 --> 00:29:05,380 we can do joins and things the right 815 00:29:05,380 --> 00:29:08,054 way. So that's super cool. Kusto, if you 816 00:29:08,054 --> 00:29:09,515 go out and you just read the documentation, 817 00:29:10,054 --> 00:29:12,054 there's a public Microsoft doc out there that 818 00:29:12,054 --> 00:29:14,154 says, here's all the best practices for Kusto. 819 00:29:14,454 --> 00:29:16,934 Again, Microsoft documentation for learn is just a 820 00:29:16,934 --> 00:29:18,375 markdown file. So if you go out to 821 00:29:18,375 --> 00:29:20,375 the GitHub repo, which is public, you just 822 00:29:20,375 --> 00:29:22,599 grab that markdown file, bring it over, pull 823 00:29:22,599 --> 00:29:25,000 it into your agent. Oh, hey. Now my 824 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:26,919 agent knows not only the schema, but it 825 00:29:26,919 --> 00:29:28,940 knows the public best practices. 826 00:29:29,399 --> 00:29:31,559 Well, let me augment that with my best 827 00:29:31,559 --> 00:29:34,539 practices. So when I'm doing things like converting, 828 00:29:35,265 --> 00:29:37,125 a summary of bytes to 829 00:29:37,585 --> 00:29:38,085 gibibytes 830 00:29:38,785 --> 00:29:41,105 to megibytes to pebibytes, whatever it happens to 831 00:29:41,105 --> 00:29:42,865 be, I always want that conversion to be 832 00:29:42,865 --> 00:29:44,625 done in this way, not this way kind 833 00:29:44,625 --> 00:29:47,105 of thing. Or when you're doing joins, always 834 00:29:47,105 --> 00:29:50,279 make sure you're including, like, hint dot strategy 835 00:29:50,339 --> 00:29:52,420 equals shuffle. So I've got this whole set 836 00:29:52,420 --> 00:29:54,359 of things that are out there now where 837 00:29:54,740 --> 00:29:57,059 before, like, going in and writing Kusto queries 838 00:29:57,059 --> 00:29:58,980 sometimes was, like, a lot of ways of, 839 00:29:58,980 --> 00:30:00,900 like, just friction because I would have to 840 00:30:00,900 --> 00:30:02,660 go pull up, like, oh, what's the scheme 841 00:30:02,660 --> 00:30:03,940 of that table? How do I do the 842 00:30:03,940 --> 00:30:05,384 join? What's going on? So now I've got 843 00:30:05,384 --> 00:30:07,144 this just little agent out there that I 844 00:30:07,144 --> 00:30:09,005 can go and fire up quickly in Copilot 845 00:30:09,065 --> 00:30:10,365 CLI, and I can say, hey, 846 00:30:10,664 --> 00:30:11,164 agent 847 00:30:11,465 --> 00:30:12,765 at blah blah blah, 848 00:30:13,065 --> 00:30:13,965 go run, 849 00:30:14,744 --> 00:30:17,644 this query for me. Go find me the 850 00:30:18,860 --> 00:30:22,460 top whatever by petabytes in region x y 851 00:30:22,460 --> 00:30:24,860 z. So that that's super cool and super 852 00:30:24,860 --> 00:30:25,360 powerful. 853 00:30:25,900 --> 00:30:27,900 The other one that's out there that I've 854 00:30:27,900 --> 00:30:30,380 done is there's an MCP server for Azure 855 00:30:30,380 --> 00:30:32,884 DevOps. Ops. So you mentioned things like Asana 856 00:30:32,944 --> 00:30:35,184 and kinda work item management, Notion, things like 857 00:30:35,184 --> 00:30:37,424 that. So I live in ADO for a 858 00:30:37,424 --> 00:30:38,724 lot of my work item management. 859 00:30:39,105 --> 00:30:41,664 I've got epics and features and tasks and 860 00:30:41,664 --> 00:30:43,440 all sorts of things out there. Same thing. 861 00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,000 We publish a set of guidance internally, like, 862 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,519 for our PMs to say, hey. Here's the 863 00:30:47,519 --> 00:30:49,440 way your epics should be structured. Here's how 864 00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,039 they should be named. Here's, like, the set 865 00:30:51,039 --> 00:30:51,859 of best practices. 866 00:30:52,399 --> 00:30:54,019 So I can take the ADOMCP, 867 00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:56,960 and I can take that markdown file that 868 00:30:56,960 --> 00:30:59,424 already exists as, like, internal documentation. Like, hey. 869 00:30:59,424 --> 00:31:01,505 So let me plunk this down and and 870 00:31:01,505 --> 00:31:03,345 plunk it down and create an agent around 871 00:31:03,345 --> 00:31:05,585 this that is now my ADO agent, which 872 00:31:05,585 --> 00:31:08,224 knows my best practices. It knows my business 873 00:31:08,224 --> 00:31:11,264 process. Hey. Go through and grab all my 874 00:31:11,264 --> 00:31:13,950 epics that are in this iteration path or 875 00:31:13,950 --> 00:31:15,789 this area path that are assigned to me 876 00:31:15,789 --> 00:31:17,710 or where I'm the PM owner for them, 877 00:31:17,710 --> 00:31:19,230 and make sure that they adhere to the 878 00:31:19,230 --> 00:31:21,309 best practices. Flag the ones that don't. What 879 00:31:21,309 --> 00:31:23,009 do you think? Like, what are some suggestions 880 00:31:23,309 --> 00:31:25,630 that I can improve and and make those 881 00:31:25,630 --> 00:31:27,730 better? And those are two things that 882 00:31:28,164 --> 00:31:30,404 I could absolutely do on my own, but 883 00:31:30,404 --> 00:31:32,644 they're so much better just having a thing 884 00:31:32,644 --> 00:31:34,964 there that can kinda constantly check them for 885 00:31:34,964 --> 00:31:37,445 me. It's almost like having a set of, 886 00:31:37,445 --> 00:31:39,204 like, unit tests that I can run on 887 00:31:39,204 --> 00:31:41,445 top of everything every time, but I'm not 888 00:31:41,445 --> 00:31:43,704 running unit tests against code that I've written. 889 00:31:43,740 --> 00:31:46,539 I'm running unit tests against business process or 890 00:31:46,539 --> 00:31:48,700 or other things that are out there. That's 891 00:31:48,700 --> 00:31:49,920 been just a, 892 00:31:51,099 --> 00:31:52,559 a super cool one 893 00:31:52,859 --> 00:31:55,359 to go through and have come together. 894 00:31:55,914 --> 00:31:57,275 And then you can start to combine these 895 00:31:57,275 --> 00:31:59,194 things. Like, I can take the ADO MCP 896 00:31:59,194 --> 00:32:00,575 and the WorkIQ MCP 897 00:32:01,035 --> 00:32:03,275 plus that agent or plus that skill or 898 00:32:03,275 --> 00:32:05,194 that plug in or whatever I've written out 899 00:32:05,194 --> 00:32:07,674 and have it come together and do what 900 00:32:07,674 --> 00:32:09,720 it needs to do. So you can get 901 00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:11,319 started with this stuff, like, super quick. Like 902 00:32:11,319 --> 00:32:13,240 I said, if you work with maybe like 903 00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,640 a Microsoft technology, be it something in Azure 904 00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,720 or m three sixty five, maybe what you 905 00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,440 can do is go out to GitHub, pull 906 00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:22,519 the markdown for, like, maybe like a feature 907 00:32:22,519 --> 00:32:24,914 area that you're interested, things like that, bring 908 00:32:24,914 --> 00:32:27,075 that markdown locally for you, put it in 909 00:32:27,075 --> 00:32:27,654 a directory, 910 00:32:27,955 --> 00:32:29,154 and then go and fire up one of 911 00:32:29,154 --> 00:32:31,154 these tools. Go fire up Cloud Code, go 912 00:32:31,154 --> 00:32:33,975 fire up Copilot CLI, go fire up Gemini 913 00:32:34,035 --> 00:32:35,654 CLI, go into that directory, 914 00:32:35,955 --> 00:32:37,869 and they all work the same. So once 915 00:32:37,869 --> 00:32:39,390 you've got like a bunch of context in 916 00:32:39,390 --> 00:32:40,990 there or artifacts, you can fire off a 917 00:32:40,990 --> 00:32:41,809 slash init, 918 00:32:42,109 --> 00:32:44,450 and slash init will go ahead and initialize 919 00:32:44,990 --> 00:32:47,549 effectively like a project in that directory for 920 00:32:47,549 --> 00:32:49,650 you, where then it can start to contextualize, 921 00:32:50,029 --> 00:32:51,384 and you can start to, like, build out 922 00:32:51,384 --> 00:32:53,404 those agents or skills or plugins 923 00:32:53,865 --> 00:32:55,404 or whatever you need to do 924 00:32:55,865 --> 00:32:56,845 just rapidly. 925 00:32:57,545 --> 00:32:59,945 So it's been really cool on that side, 926 00:32:59,945 --> 00:33:01,305 and maybe one of the other things that 927 00:33:01,305 --> 00:33:02,825 I've been doing I don't know if you've 928 00:33:02,825 --> 00:33:04,424 done this at all. I've been playing around 929 00:33:04,424 --> 00:33:05,244 more with 930 00:33:05,599 --> 00:33:07,840 the dictation engines that are out there and 931 00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:09,680 just being able to, like, dictate straight in. 932 00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:11,440 So even rather than me typing a lot 933 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:12,720 of this stuff, I can just hit a 934 00:33:12,720 --> 00:33:14,400 set of hot keys on my keyboard, and 935 00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:15,440 all of a sudden, I can just start 936 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,359 talking into the terminal and have it figure 937 00:33:17,359 --> 00:33:18,180 out my gibberish 938 00:33:18,505 --> 00:33:20,044 and come back the other way. 939 00:33:20,345 --> 00:33:22,505 It's starting to get really weird and wonky 940 00:33:22,505 --> 00:33:24,424 out there. I've thought about the voice. I 941 00:33:24,424 --> 00:33:25,884 haven't done it a ton yet. 942 00:33:26,345 --> 00:33:29,065 I should play with it more. I won't 943 00:33:29,065 --> 00:33:30,664 lie. Part of the problem is I also 944 00:33:30,664 --> 00:33:32,105 have family at home, and as soon as 945 00:33:32,105 --> 00:33:34,284 they hear me talking to my computer or 946 00:33:35,839 --> 00:33:38,000 Siri, all of a sudden, well, I'm crazy 947 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:39,919 or I hear them from the background start 948 00:33:39,919 --> 00:33:41,679 yelling a bunch of gibberish to try to 949 00:33:41,679 --> 00:33:43,119 mess me up. And I'm like, come on, 950 00:33:43,119 --> 00:33:44,659 guys. Like, stop. 951 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,525 My work Siri just started going. So I 952 00:33:48,525 --> 00:33:50,365 haven't done that. I wanna do that. I 953 00:33:50,365 --> 00:33:52,125 would say when you were talking about that, 954 00:33:52,125 --> 00:33:55,105 the other example I had just super quick, 955 00:33:55,805 --> 00:33:57,644 I had a client the other day that 956 00:33:57,644 --> 00:33:59,585 wanted to know some about 957 00:34:00,365 --> 00:34:02,545 a particular event that happened in their tenant, 958 00:34:02,630 --> 00:34:04,869 their Microsoft three sixty five tenant. They didn't 959 00:34:04,869 --> 00:34:07,509 have Sentinel, so all we had was, Microsoft 960 00:34:07,509 --> 00:34:09,429 three sixty five, like, the audit log, the 961 00:34:09,429 --> 00:34:11,429 unified audit log. You can go in and 962 00:34:11,429 --> 00:34:13,510 export that, but have you ever do you 963 00:34:13,510 --> 00:34:15,349 remember looking at an export of the unified 964 00:34:15,349 --> 00:34:18,175 audit log? It's just column after column of 965 00:34:18,574 --> 00:34:20,414 It's not even that. It's five columns of 966 00:34:20,414 --> 00:34:21,394 usable information 967 00:34:21,775 --> 00:34:23,695 or say four or five followed by a 968 00:34:23,695 --> 00:34:26,255 last column that's, like, data, and it's a 969 00:34:26,255 --> 00:34:26,755 massive 970 00:34:27,054 --> 00:34:30,034 JSON string because all of these different events, 971 00:34:30,420 --> 00:34:32,339 to your point earlier about schemas, have different 972 00:34:32,339 --> 00:34:32,839 schemas. 973 00:34:33,219 --> 00:34:35,380 So I went in and downloaded one around 974 00:34:35,380 --> 00:34:38,280 this event, like, four hour block. This user 975 00:34:38,579 --> 00:34:39,079 exported 976 00:34:39,380 --> 00:34:41,319 a 8,000 line CSV 977 00:34:41,619 --> 00:34:44,074 with all this gibberish. I said, go take 978 00:34:44,074 --> 00:34:44,734 the CSV, 979 00:34:45,355 --> 00:34:47,454 parse the JSON and the last end, and 980 00:34:47,755 --> 00:34:48,255 recreate 981 00:34:48,714 --> 00:34:50,494 a adequately formatted CSV. 982 00:34:50,795 --> 00:34:53,674 It turned six columns into a 197 983 00:34:53,674 --> 00:34:54,974 columns in the CSV. 984 00:34:55,309 --> 00:34:56,670 Then I had to go in and duplicate 985 00:34:56,670 --> 00:34:58,190 it because I also found out in this 986 00:34:58,190 --> 00:34:59,710 some of the schemas don't use the same 987 00:34:59,710 --> 00:35:01,469 headers. One of them will use IP address, 988 00:35:01,469 --> 00:35:04,190 one will use client IP address. Stupid stuff 989 00:35:04,190 --> 00:35:07,070 like that. Claude actually separated stuff out based 990 00:35:07,070 --> 00:35:09,230 on case sensitivity, so I had to combine 991 00:35:09,230 --> 00:35:10,590 some where the case was 992 00:35:11,164 --> 00:35:12,224 cases were different. 993 00:35:12,684 --> 00:35:13,964 But then I was able to go in 994 00:35:13,964 --> 00:35:15,804 once I had all that done. I was 995 00:35:15,804 --> 00:35:17,644 able to have a whole conversation with Claude 996 00:35:17,644 --> 00:35:21,164 about, okay, find IP addresses that are uncommon 997 00:35:21,164 --> 00:35:22,385 in here, find 998 00:35:22,844 --> 00:35:25,085 activities where a bunch of files were downloaded 999 00:35:25,085 --> 00:35:27,539 that maybe look suspicious, or go look and 1000 00:35:27,539 --> 00:35:29,780 see if there were any mail rules created 1001 00:35:29,780 --> 00:35:30,440 in here. 1002 00:35:30,739 --> 00:35:31,719 And instead of 1003 00:35:32,019 --> 00:35:32,920 writing KQL 1004 00:35:33,300 --> 00:35:35,160 or going through and 1005 00:35:36,019 --> 00:35:37,239 analyzing this manually, 1006 00:35:37,539 --> 00:35:39,640 I let Claude code 1007 00:35:40,155 --> 00:35:41,835 have the first pass or maybe I didn't 1008 00:35:41,835 --> 00:35:44,155 regular Claude. I can't remember. I let AI 1009 00:35:44,155 --> 00:35:46,315 have the first pass at it to help 1010 00:35:46,315 --> 00:35:46,815 me 1011 00:35:47,355 --> 00:35:49,994 drill down to what information I might be 1012 00:35:49,994 --> 00:35:51,755 looking for, things I wanna go look at 1013 00:35:51,755 --> 00:35:53,949 a little bit closer. I find Claude in 1014 00:35:53,949 --> 00:35:56,170 particular is very good at 1015 00:35:56,590 --> 00:35:58,530 even if you ask it a basic question, 1016 00:35:58,910 --> 00:36:00,510 it always comes back with a little bit 1017 00:36:00,510 --> 00:36:02,369 of more, but not in 1018 00:36:02,910 --> 00:36:05,710 the chat GPT way, which is very, I 1019 00:36:05,710 --> 00:36:07,934 think, just over the top, sometimes, 1020 00:36:08,394 --> 00:36:10,474 like, sycophantic, right, where it's, like, it's gotta, 1021 00:36:10,474 --> 00:36:12,494 like, bleed in and say, like, oh, hey. 1022 00:36:12,875 --> 00:36:13,934 Like, great job. 1023 00:36:14,394 --> 00:36:16,074 We're all ready to go. Like, I can 1024 00:36:16,074 --> 00:36:17,835 do things, like, any for example, with, like, 1025 00:36:17,835 --> 00:36:19,755 the Cousteau stuff that I do, very similar. 1026 00:36:19,755 --> 00:36:21,594 Like, I'm just querying off, trying to figure 1027 00:36:21,594 --> 00:36:23,039 out, like, hey. Give me give me, like, 1028 00:36:23,119 --> 00:36:25,280 a table back, and give me some columns 1029 00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:27,519 that are summarized and things like that. But 1030 00:36:27,519 --> 00:36:29,679 it's also, like, good at just saying and 1031 00:36:29,679 --> 00:36:32,000 it because it's so enterprise oriented, I think, 1032 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:32,820 over things 1033 00:36:33,119 --> 00:36:33,780 like Copilot, 1034 00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:35,679 where it comes back and it just kinda 1035 00:36:35,679 --> 00:36:38,295 says, oh, hey. Here's the data you wanted, 1036 00:36:38,295 --> 00:36:40,454 and here's some insights about that data. Can 1037 00:36:40,454 --> 00:36:42,215 I tell you more, or would you like 1038 00:36:42,215 --> 00:36:44,454 to dig in more? Which is very different 1039 00:36:44,454 --> 00:36:46,614 than, you know, I think my experiences in 1040 00:36:46,614 --> 00:36:48,614 Copilot or things where, like, yeah, it'll come 1041 00:36:48,614 --> 00:36:49,910 back and it'll say, like, do you want 1042 00:36:49,910 --> 00:36:51,430 more? But usually, do you want more is 1043 00:36:51,430 --> 00:36:53,930 something that's gonna, like, break down horribly or 1044 00:36:54,230 --> 00:36:56,410 not generally work as part of the process. 1045 00:36:56,630 --> 00:36:59,130 Yeah. I would agree. I feel like 1046 00:36:59,590 --> 00:37:00,090 interactions 1047 00:37:01,525 --> 00:37:02,105 in Claude, 1048 00:37:02,565 --> 00:37:03,545 from my experience, 1049 00:37:03,925 --> 00:37:06,664 tend to feel more, I would say, conversational 1050 00:37:07,204 --> 00:37:09,045 in terms of that back and forth to 1051 00:37:09,045 --> 00:37:10,565 get to where you wanna be. So I 1052 00:37:10,565 --> 00:37:13,125 think TLDR. If you are somebody who's out 1053 00:37:13,125 --> 00:37:15,304 there and you're using the 1054 00:37:15,989 --> 00:37:17,690 desktop versions of 1055 00:37:17,989 --> 00:37:19,050 Claude, ChatGPT, 1056 00:37:19,750 --> 00:37:22,230 whatever it happens to be, there are these 1057 00:37:22,230 --> 00:37:23,289 CLI experiences, 1058 00:37:23,590 --> 00:37:25,909 and the CLIs, I think, tie together a 1059 00:37:25,909 --> 00:37:27,750 set of capabilities. Like, if you are working 1060 00:37:27,750 --> 00:37:30,250 with local files, local folders, 1061 00:37:31,335 --> 00:37:31,994 you have 1062 00:37:32,534 --> 00:37:33,434 just kind of 1063 00:37:33,894 --> 00:37:36,554 you wanna publish, like, hard guidance through instructions, 1064 00:37:36,855 --> 00:37:37,755 things like that. 1065 00:37:38,054 --> 00:37:40,534 Build a custom agent, which has like I 1066 00:37:40,534 --> 00:37:43,675 said, it's a markdown file. It's not like 1067 00:37:43,894 --> 00:37:45,150 it's not like you're going in there and 1068 00:37:45,150 --> 00:37:48,269 writing code. It's a markdown file with header 1069 00:37:48,269 --> 00:37:51,389 one, header two, header three, just formatted in 1070 00:37:51,389 --> 00:37:53,469 a way that shows, hey. Here's how you 1071 00:37:53,469 --> 00:37:54,989 can do things, or here's how I want 1072 00:37:54,989 --> 00:37:57,195 you to execute this piece of code. Like, 1073 00:37:57,275 --> 00:37:58,555 you can go into an agent or a 1074 00:37:58,555 --> 00:38:00,315 skill, and you can actually define, like, code 1075 00:38:00,315 --> 00:38:01,994 blocks. You can say, like, oh, this is 1076 00:38:01,994 --> 00:38:04,235 PowerShell, or this is Bash, and it'll go 1077 00:38:04,235 --> 00:38:06,494 ahead. It'll figure it out. It'll run it 1078 00:38:06,555 --> 00:38:08,414 and do what it needs to do. So 1079 00:38:08,474 --> 00:38:10,235 I would encourage folks, like, if you haven't, 1080 00:38:10,235 --> 00:38:11,940 get hands on with this. And then back 1081 00:38:11,940 --> 00:38:13,699 to your earlier call out, like, if you 1082 00:38:13,699 --> 00:38:15,059 are using this stuff and you found an 1083 00:38:15,059 --> 00:38:16,980 interesting way to use it, we'd love to 1084 00:38:16,980 --> 00:38:19,079 hear it and hear more about, 1085 00:38:19,619 --> 00:38:21,539 what you're all doing with it. I found 1086 00:38:21,539 --> 00:38:22,280 it to be, 1087 00:38:22,900 --> 00:38:25,880 like, genuinely one of those things about AI 1088 00:38:25,940 --> 00:38:26,599 that is 1089 00:38:26,925 --> 00:38:29,565 helpful in my day to day job. I've 1090 00:38:29,565 --> 00:38:31,425 been struggling there a little bit with Copilot 1091 00:38:31,485 --> 00:38:33,905 lately, where this is M365 1092 00:38:34,364 --> 00:38:36,704 Copilot rather. So this has kind of reignited 1093 00:38:36,844 --> 00:38:38,285 a bunch of things for me, and it's 1094 00:38:38,285 --> 00:38:40,179 helpful in my world. You mentioned the things 1095 00:38:40,179 --> 00:38:43,400 about, like, boundaries and internal versus external data. 1096 00:38:43,539 --> 00:38:45,880 Like, if I'm doing something like iterating 1097 00:38:46,260 --> 00:38:46,760 on 1098 00:38:47,059 --> 00:38:50,519 writing PowerShell scripts or bash scripts or KQL, 1099 00:38:50,660 --> 00:38:52,984 things like that, There's all this public documentation. 1100 00:38:53,045 --> 00:38:54,244 Just go out and pull that stuff down. 1101 00:38:54,244 --> 00:38:55,684 Like, that's all it's all you're doing is 1102 00:38:55,684 --> 00:38:57,924 saying, like, hey. I wanna teach this thing 1103 00:38:57,924 --> 00:38:59,224 to help me be better 1104 00:38:59,684 --> 00:39:02,085 through the use of public artifacts and things 1105 00:39:02,085 --> 00:39:04,324 like that. It's it's super cool. I'm having 1106 00:39:04,324 --> 00:39:05,930 a ton of fun doing it, and it's 1107 00:39:05,930 --> 00:39:07,610 not like, oh, this is just, like, geeking 1108 00:39:07,610 --> 00:39:10,570 out. Like, it's genuinely helping me in my 1109 00:39:10,570 --> 00:39:12,650 day to day job. Yeah. And don't let 1110 00:39:12,650 --> 00:39:14,970 the I would say following up with that, 1111 00:39:14,970 --> 00:39:16,890 don't let the code I'm putting it in 1112 00:39:16,890 --> 00:39:18,704 their codes. The code part of all these 1113 00:39:18,864 --> 00:39:20,244 scare you away because 1114 00:39:20,545 --> 00:39:21,985 that kept me away for a little bit 1115 00:39:21,985 --> 00:39:24,164 because it was Claude code or it was 1116 00:39:24,385 --> 00:39:27,105 Visual Studio GitHub or it's Gemini code or 1117 00:39:27,105 --> 00:39:28,724 it's all of these. It's like, 1118 00:39:29,025 --> 00:39:30,945 no. I use this for way more than 1119 00:39:30,945 --> 00:39:32,809 code and just because it says code, you 1120 00:39:32,809 --> 00:39:34,090 don't need to use it for code and 1121 00:39:34,090 --> 00:39:35,849 you don't have to be a developer or 1122 00:39:35,849 --> 00:39:38,329 a coder to use the CLI version. It's 1123 00:39:38,329 --> 00:39:39,630 just another way 1124 00:39:40,170 --> 00:39:42,269 to leverage these AI engines. 1125 00:39:42,650 --> 00:39:45,934 And from my perspective, they it's easier to 1126 00:39:45,934 --> 00:39:47,855 access files on your file system through the 1127 00:39:47,855 --> 00:39:49,795 CLI too versus the, 1128 00:39:50,574 --> 00:39:51,074 desktop 1129 00:39:51,375 --> 00:39:54,735 UI client based ones. So don't let the 1130 00:39:54,735 --> 00:39:56,655 code label on these scare you away from 1131 00:39:56,655 --> 00:39:58,349 trying them out and using them. They are 1132 00:39:58,430 --> 00:39:59,250 super approachable 1133 00:39:59,550 --> 00:40:00,829 at the end of the day. I've actually 1134 00:40:00,829 --> 00:40:02,989 been impressed with things like just copy paste 1135 00:40:02,989 --> 00:40:05,950 from, like, like, raw text into the terminal, 1136 00:40:05,950 --> 00:40:08,110 things like that. Like, they they all of 1137 00:40:08,110 --> 00:40:10,030 these CLI tools have done a very good 1138 00:40:10,030 --> 00:40:10,530 job, 1139 00:40:11,295 --> 00:40:13,074 with being able to wrap this stuff together 1140 00:40:13,295 --> 00:40:15,074 and that experience. So, 1141 00:40:15,375 --> 00:40:18,175 yeah, I think super cool stuff. Probably, as 1142 00:40:18,335 --> 00:40:20,275 say, let's revisit it in a couple months 1143 00:40:20,414 --> 00:40:22,734 and see what else is out there. The 1144 00:40:22,734 --> 00:40:24,514 AI train continues to March, 1145 00:40:24,949 --> 00:40:25,449 and, 1146 00:40:26,150 --> 00:40:28,069 we'll continue to use it in our day 1147 00:40:28,069 --> 00:40:30,230 to day roles here. Yeah. It'll be different 1148 00:40:30,230 --> 00:40:32,069 a month from now. So Probably. I am. 1149 00:40:32,069 --> 00:40:33,509 I'm curious to see where it goes over 1150 00:40:33,509 --> 00:40:35,269 this course of 2026. 1151 00:40:35,269 --> 00:40:37,269 So with that, I should probably go to 1152 00:40:37,269 --> 00:40:38,869 a meeting that I just told everybody I'd 1153 00:40:38,869 --> 00:40:39,824 be right there for. 1154 00:40:40,224 --> 00:40:42,704 There you go. Back to work. Yeah. Right. 1155 00:40:42,704 --> 00:40:45,744 It never stops. Alright. Well, thanks, Scott. Appreciate 1156 00:40:45,744 --> 00:40:47,045 it. That was a fun conversation. 1157 00:40:47,425 --> 00:40:49,824 I back to terminal days. Let's just get 1158 00:40:49,824 --> 00:40:51,105 rid of the UI. Let's just go back 1159 00:40:51,105 --> 00:40:53,264 to pure terminal days. Yeah. Everything's gonna be 1160 00:40:53,264 --> 00:40:56,079 ASCII art. We're gonna love it. Absolutely. Oh, 1161 00:40:56,079 --> 00:40:58,079 I haven't asked Claude to create ASCII art. 1162 00:40:58,079 --> 00:41:00,000 Have you tried that? I have not. But 1163 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:01,360 maybe next time we chat, you can let 1164 00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,699 me know how your experiment goes. Yep. Takeaway, 1165 00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:05,519 test. See what we can create with ASCII 1166 00:41:05,519 --> 00:41:07,280 art between this podcast and the next. Alright. 1167 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,344 Perfect. Thanks, Ben. Have fun. Thanks, Scott. Talk 1168 00:41:09,344 --> 00:41:10,085 to you later. 1169 00:41:12,065 --> 00:41:14,304 If you enjoyed the podcast, go leave us 1170 00:41:14,304 --> 00:41:16,545 a five star rating in iTunes. It helps 1171 00:41:16,545 --> 00:41:18,224 to get the word out so more IT 1172 00:41:18,224 --> 00:41:20,385 pros can learn about Office three sixty five 1173 00:41:20,385 --> 00:41:21,045 and Azure. 1174 00:41:21,585 --> 00:41:23,160 If you have any questions you want us 1175 00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,360 to address on the show, or feedback about 1176 00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:26,019 the show, 1177 00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,420 feel free to reach out via our website, 1178 00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:29,940 Twitter, or Facebook. 1179 00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:32,079 Thanks again for listening, and have a great 1180 00:41:32,079 --> 00:41:32,579 day.

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Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast

Ben Stegink, Scott Hoag

On the MS Cloud IT Pro Podcast, Scott and Ben discuss the Microsoft Cloud with a focus on IT Pros. They'll discuss the latest in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 News, Azure news and talk about their experiences with managing the Microsoft Cloud as well as interview industry experts on various cloud technology. They'll cover things such as SharePoint, Exchange, Microsoft Teams, PowerShell, Azure, Azure AD, Security, Networking, Storage, and the many other technologies and products that have made their way into the Microsoft 365 suite and Azure. To stay up-to-date on the latest in Microsoft Cloud news and gain some valuable knowledge as you deploy it within your own organization, make sure to tune in every week! Find out more at msclouditpropodcast.com.

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