Azure Developer CLI templates overview

Azure Developer CLI (azd) templates are regular code repositories that include sample application code, as well as azd configuration and infrastructure files. azd templates enable you to provision Azure resources, deploy your application, configure CI/CD pipelines, and more. You can either create your own templates, or get started using an existing template from a template repository such as Awesome AZD. In this article, you'll learn about the following concepts:

• How azd templates enable you to provision and deploy app resources
• How azd templates are structured
• How to decide whether to use an existing template or create one
• Explore existing azd starter templates

Why use Azure Developer CLI templates?

Developers often face many time consuming and challenging tasks when building properly architected and configured environment aware apps for the cloud. Teams must account for many different concerns in these environments, such as creating resources, applying configurations, setting up monitoring and logging, building CI/CD pipelines, and other tasks. azd templates reduce and streamline these responsibilities to help the developer on their journey from local development to a successfully deployed app on Azure.

For example, suppose you work at a company that operates a ticket management and customer communication platform, which requires the following Azure resources:

• Two App Service instances and an App Service Plan to host a front-end web app and back-end API
• A Key Vault instance to store secure app secrets
• A Cosmos DB database to permanently store app data
• Azure Monitor resources such as Application Insights dashboards
• A Service Bus to manage scalable messaging
• CI/CD pipelines to ensure changes can be reliably deployed through an automated, repeatable process.

Rather than starting from the ground up, with azd you can leverage existing architecture templates to provision and deploy most of the resources for you. The development team can then focus on building the app and making smaller adjustments to the template architecture.

How Azure Developer CLI templates work

Azure Developer CLI templates are designed to work with azd commands such as azd init and azd up. The templates include configuration and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) files that are used by the commands to perform tasks such as provisioning Azure resources and deploy the app code to them.

For example, a typical azd workflow using an existing template includes the following steps:

1. Run the azd init command with the --template parameter to clone an existing template down from GitHub.

   azd init --template todo-nodejs-mongo
   

2. Run the azd auth login command to authenticate to your Azure subscription.

   azd auth login
   

3. Run the azd up command to provision and deploy the template resources to Azure. The azd up command leverages the configuration and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) files in your template to provision Azure resources and deploy your application to those resources.

   azd up
   

4. Once your environment is set up in Azure, you can locally modify the application features or Azure resource templates and then run azd up again to provision your changes.

Explore Azure Developer CLI template structure

azd templates are standard code repositories with some additional assets included. All azd templates share a similar file structure based on azd conventions:

• infra folder - Contains all of the Bicep or Terraform infrastructure as code files for the azd template. azd executes these files to create the Azure resources required to host your app.
• azure.yaml file - A configuration file that maps source code folders in your project to Azure resources defined in the infra folder for deployment. For example, you might define an API service and a web front-end service in separate folders and 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 exclude the src folder and only provide infrastructure assets so you can add your own application code.

For example, a common azd template might match the following folder structure:

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

• .github folder - Holds the CI/CD workflow files for GitHub Actions, 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.
• .devcontainer folder - Allows you to set up a Dev Container environment for your application.

Start with an existing template or create your own

There are two main approaches to working with azd templates:

• Start with an existing azd template.
  • This is a good choice if you're just getting started with azd or if you're looking for a template to build off of for a new app with a similar architecture and frameworks.
• Convert an existing project to an azd template.
  • This is a good choice when you already have an existing app but you want to make it compatible with azd capabilities.

The following sections provide more information on these two options.

Start with an existing template

A broad selection of azd templates is available on the awesome-azd template gallery. These templates provide infrastructure and application code for various development scenarios, language frameworks, and Azure services. If you find a template that aligns with your local application stack or desired architecture, you can extend and replace the template code with your own

For example, the following azd templates provide starting points for common app architectures and frameworks:

Create a new azd template for your app

You can also convert an existing app into an azd template to enhance the repository with provisioning and deployment capabilities. This approach allows for the most control and produces a reusable solution for future development work on the app. The high level steps to create your own template are as follows:

• Initialize the project template with azd init.
• Create the Bicep or Terraform infrastructure as code files in the infra folder.
• Update the azure.yaml file to tie the app services together with the Azure resources.
• Provision & deploy with azd up.

The following resources provide more information about creating your own templates:

• Build your first Azure Developer CLI template
• Make your project compatible with azd guide

Guidelines for using azd templates

Please note that each template that you use with Azure Developer CLI is licensed by its respective owner (which may or may not be Microsoft) under the agreement which accompanies the template. It is your responsibility to determine what license applies to any template you choose to use.

Microsoft is not responsible for any non-Microsoft templates and does not screen these templates for security, privacy, compatibility, or performance issues. The templates you use with Azure Developer CLI, including those provided from Microsoft, are not supported by any Microsoft support program or service. Any Microsoft-provided templates are provided AS IS without warranty of any kind.

Next steps