Badge: Nasty hacker

In the world of coding, much like in the realm of wizards, secrets must be safeguarded from prying eyes. Wizards have their wands; developers have their credentials, keys, and secrets. But during a hackathon, with the clock ticking, practicality often trumps perfection.

Normally, when building a PowerApps Component Framework (PCF) component, best practices dictate making it reusable and configurable. This means parameters like API keys or environment-specific data should be dynamically passed during configuration. But who has time for that in a hackathon?

For the sake of speed and simplicity, we decided to skip flexibility. Instead of allowing users to input Dynamics parameters when configuring the PCF, we hardcoded them directly into the component. Yes, it’s messy, and yes, it’s a cardinal sin in standard development. But it works, and it gets us closer to claiming our badge of “superdirty hacks to achieve awesomeness.

It’s not elegant. It’s not reusable. But it’s efficient—and in a hackathon, that’s the magic we need.