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Azure Developer CLI and Azure Deployment Environments

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In this article, you learn about Azure Developer CLI (azd) and how it works with Azure Deployment Environments (ADE) to simplify the process of provisioning application infrastructure and deploying application code to the new infrastructure.

azd is an open-source command-line tool that provides developer-friendly commands that map to key stages in your workflow. You can install azd locally on your machine or use it in other environments.

With ADE, you can create environments from an environment definition in a catalog attached to your dev center, or by using the ADE extensibility model to execute deployments. By adding azd, you can streamline the process of provisioning infrastructure and deploying code to the cloud.

How does azd work with ADE?

azd works with ADE to enable you to create environments from where you're working.

With ADE and azd, individual developers working with unique infrastructure and code that they want to upload to the cloud can create an environment from a local folder. They can use azd to provision an environment and deploy their code seamlessly.

At scale, using ADE and azd together enables you to provide a way for developers to create app infrastructure and code. Your team can create multiple ADE environments from the same azd compatible environment definition, and provision code to the cloud in a consistent way.

Understand azd templates

The Azure Developer CLI commands are designed to work with standardized templates. Each template is a code repository that adheres to specific file and folder conventions. The templates contain the assets azd needs to provision an Azure Deployment Environment environment. When you run a command like azd up, the tool uses the template assets to execute various workflow steps, such as provisioning or deploying resources to Azure.

The following diagram shows a typical template structure:

├── infra                                        [ Contains infrastructure as code files ]
├── .azdo                                        [ Configures an Azure Pipeline ]
├── .devcontainer                                [ For DevContainer ]
├── .github                                      [ Configures a GitHub workflow ]
├── .vscode                                      [ VS Code workspace configurations ]
├── .azure                                       [ Stores Azure configurations and environment variables ]
├── src                                          [ Contains all of the deployable app source code ]
└── azure.yaml                                   [ Describes the app and type of Azure resources]

All azd templates include the following assets:

  • infra folder - The infra folder is not used in azd with ADE. It contains all of the Bicep or Terraform infrastructure as code files for the azd template. ADE provides the infrastructure as code files for the azd template. You don't need to include these files in your azd template.

  • azure.yaml file - A configuration file that defines one or more services in your project and maps them to Azure resources for deployment. For example, you might define an API service and a web front-end service, each with attributes that map them to different Azure resources for deployment.

  • .azure folder - Contains essential Azure configurations and environment variables, such as the location to deploy resources or other subscription information.

  • src folder - Contains all of the deployable app source code. Some azd templates only provide infrastructure assets and leave the src directory empty for you to add your own application code.

Most azd templates also optionally include one or more of the following folders:

  • .devcontainer folder - Allows you to set up a Dev Container environment for your application. This common development environment approach that isn't specific to azd .

  • .github folder - Holds the CI/CD workflow files for GitHub Actions, which is the default CI/CD provider for azd .

  • .azdo folder - If you decide to use Azure Pipelines for CI/CD, define the workflow configuration files in this folder.

azd compatible catalogs

Azure Deployment Environments catalogs consist of environment definitions: IaC templates that define the infrastructure resources that are provisioned for a deployment environment. Azure Developer CLI uses environment definitions in the catalog attached to the dev center to provision new environments.

Azure Developer CLI works with ARM templates stored in the Azure Deployment Environments dev center catalog. It also supports other IaC templates, such as Bicep and Terraform through the ADE extensibility model. To learn how to configure the ADE extensibility model, see Azure Deployment Environments extensibility model.

To properly support certain Azure Compute services, Azure Developer CLI requires more configuration settings in the IaC template. For example, you must tag app service hosts with specific information so that azd knows how to find the hosts and deploy the app to them.

You can see a list of supported Azure services here: Supported Azure compute services (host).

Make your ADE catalog compatible with azd

To enable your development teams to us azd with ADE, you need to create an environment definition in your catalog that is compatible with azd. You can create a new azdcompatible environment definition, or you can use an existing environment definition from the Azure Deployment Environments dev center catalog. If you choose to use an existing environment definition, you need to make a few changes to make it compatible with azd.

Changes include:

  • If you're modifying an existing azd template, remove the infra folder. ADE uses the following files to create the infrastructure:
    • ARM template (azuredeploy.json.)
    • Configuration file that defines parameters (environment.yaml or manifest.yaml)
  • Tag resources in azure.yaml with specific information so that azd knows how to find the hosts and deploy the app to them.

To learn more about how to make your ADE environment definition compatible with azd, see Make your project compatible with Azure Developer CLI.

Enable azd support in ADE

To enable azd support with ADE, you need to set the platform.type to devcenter. This configuration allows azd to use new dev center components for remote environment state and provisioning, and means that the infra folder in your templates is ignored. Instead, azd uses one of the infrastructure templates defined in your dev center catalog for resource provisioning.

To enable azd support, run the following command:

 azd config set platform.type devcenter

Explore azd commands

When the dev center feature is enabled, the default behavior of some common azd commands changes to work with these remote environments. For more information, see Work with Azure Deployment Environments.

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