FAQ

Project

Is lazyteams affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft?

No. lazyteams is an independent, community-made, educational terminal client. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft and Microsoft Teams are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation; this project only references them to describe what it interoperates with.

Is using lazyteams against Microsoft's Terms of Service?

lazyteams operates on already-authenticated Microsoft Teams sessions — you sign in with your own account, and the app talks to the same Microsoft Graph / Teams APIs your account is already allowed to use. It does not bypass authentication, distribute proprietary Microsoft binaries, or scrape data you don't have access to.

That said, it is a third-party client that uses Microsoft's public (Graph) and some undocumented internal APIs. Use it only with accounts and tenants you are authorized to access, follow your organization's policies, and be aware that:

• Features built on undocumented internal APIs may break or change without notice.
• Your organization's IT policies are the authority on what's permitted.

Can Microsoft ban or block my account for using lazyteams?

We can't speak for Microsoft. Like any third-party tool, unusual usage patterns could draw attention. In practice, lazyteams makes the same requests a normal Teams client makes. Keep usage reasonable, respect your organization's policies, and treat the tool as experimental.

Why does lazyteams need my tokens at all?

It's a local, terminal-only client — there's no cloud backend. To talk to the Microsoft Graph and Teams APIs on your behalf, it needs the same tokens the web/desktop client uses. Those tokens are captured once by lazyteams-auth and stored locally; they are never sent anywhere except back to Microsoft's own APIs, in your name.

Accounts

Which accounts does lazyteams work with?

University or enterprise (work/school) Microsoft 365 accounts — i.e. tenants that have Microsoft Teams. Consumer accounts (personal @outlook.com / @hotmail.com) are not supported, since they don't have Teams.

Does my organization need to grant me special access?

No — but the organization must allow you to consent to the Graph permissions lazyteams requests (see Getting Started). Some organizations restrict consent; if a permission shows "Need admin approval", contact your IT administrator.

Privacy & Security

Where are my tokens stored, and how are they protected?

All runtime files live in ~/.config/lazyteams/ (%APPDATA%\lazyteams on Windows). The token file (tokens.env) is written with 0600 permissions (owner-only), and the browser session directory with 0700. Anyone with access to those paths can act as your signed-in Teams user, so treat them like SSH keys. See SECURITY.md for the full breakdown.

Does lazyteams send my data anywhere?

No telemetry, no analytics, no tracking. lazyteams only makes requests to:

• Microsoft's own APIs (Graph, Teams ChatSvc, Education, etc.) in order to function — always with your own tokens.
• GitHub's releases API, once at startup, to check for a new version. This check is anonymous and silently skipped if it fails.

Why does the auth helper need Firefox / Playwright?

lazyteams-auth uses Playwright with Firefox to automate the login flow once and capture the required tokens automatically. Firefox is the browser backend that ships with Playwright; it's only used for this capture and renewal flow, not to run the TUI.

Why is tokens.env sometimes flagged as "readable by other users"?

If you restore the file from a backup, default permissions may not preserve 0600. lazyteams prints a warning (but still works). Fix it with:

chmod 600 ~/.config/lazyteams/tokens.env

Usage

Will I be logged out?

Tokens expire (the Graph token roughly hourly; Teams Web/Notif/Fabric roughly daily). The TUI renews expired tokens automatically in the background, so you generally stay signed in. If a token can't be renewed (e.g. the Microsoft session itself expired), you may need to re-authenticate.

How do I reset my installation?

lazyteams-auth --clear-session --clear-tokens

This deletes the saved browser session and all tokens, forcing a fresh login next time.

How do I know which version I'm running?

lazyteams --version

Binaries built with plain go build report dev; use make build VERSION=v1.2.3 (or make dist VERSION=v1.2.3) or download a release to get a real version.

How do I update lazyteams?

The TUI checks GitHub releases at startup and shows a notice when a newer version exists. You can update automatically by running lazyteams --update, which will download the latest release, verify it, and replace the binaries. Alternatively, download the latest release from the releases page or rebuild from source.

Development & Legal

Why is lazyteams licensed under GPLv3?

GPLv3 keeps the project open and ensures any derivative work stays open too. See LICENSE. By contributing, you agree your contributions are licensed under GPLv3.

Can I use lazyteams for my organization?

It's an educational tool — use it in compliance with your organization's policies and Microsoft's Terms of Service. If you rely on it for critical work, be aware it's pre-release software without support guarantees (see SECURITY.md).

Something broke. Where do I report it?

Check the Troubleshooting page first. If it's not there, open an issue on GitHub. For security issues, do not open a public issue with tokens/cookies — report via a Security Advisory or private channel instead (see SECURITY.md).