Local File System with Bicep

Follow these instructions to bootstrap a local file system folder ready to deploy your platform landing zone with Bicep.

Create a new folder on your local drive called accelerator.
Inside the accelerator create two folders called config and output. You’ll store you input file inside config and the output folder will be the place that the accelerator stores files while it works.

Inside the config folder create a new file called inputs.yaml. You can use json if you prefer, but our examples here are yaml.

# Windows
New-Item -ItemType "file" c:\accelerator\config\inputs.yaml -Force
New-Item -ItemType "directory" c:\accelerator\output

# Linux/Mac
New-Item -ItemType "file" /accelerator/config/inputs.yaml -Force
New-Item -ItemType "directory" /accelerator/output

📂accelerator
┣ 📂config
┃ ┗ 📜inputs.yaml
┗ 📂output

Open your inputs.yaml file in Visual Studio Code (or your preferred editor) and copy the content from inputs-local.yaml into that file.

Check through the file and update each input as required. It is mandatory to update items with placeholders surrounded by angle brackets <>:

The following inputs can also be supplied via environment variables. This may be useful for sensitive values you don’t wish to persist to a file. The Env Var Prefix denotes the prefix the environment variable should have. The environment variable is formatting is <PREFIX>_<variable_name>, e.g. $env:ALZ_iac_type = "terraform" or $env:TF_VAR_github_personal_access_token = "*****...".

Input	Env Var Prefix	Placeholder	Description
`iac_type`	`ALZ`	`bicep`	This is the choice of `bicep` or `terraform`. Keep this as `bicep` for this example.
`bootstrap_module_name`	`ALZ`	`alz_local`	This is the choice of Version Control System. Keep this as `alz_local` for this example.
`starter_module_name`	`ALZ`	`complete`	This is the choice of [Starter Modules][wiki_starter_modules], which is the baseline configuration you want for your Azure landing zone. Keep this as `complete` for this example.
`bootstrap_location`	`TF_VAR`	`<region>`	Replace `<region>` with the Azure region where you would like to deploy the bootstrap resources in Azure. This field expects the `name` of the region, such as `uksouth`. You can find a full list of names by running `az account list-locations -o table`.
`starter_locations`	`TF_VAR`	`[<region-1>,<region-2>]`	Replace `<region-1>` and `<region-2>` with the Azure regions where you would like to deploy the starter module resources in Azure. This field expects the `name` of the regions in and array, such as `["uksouth", "ukwest"]`. You can find a full list of names by running `az account list-locations -o table`.
`root_parent_management_group_id`	`TF_VAR`	`""`	This is the id of the management group that will be the parent of the management group structure created by the accelerator. If you are using the `Tenant Root Group` management group, you leave this as an empty string `""` or supply the tenant id.
`subscription_id_management`	`TF_VAR`	`<management-subscription-id>`	Replace `<management-subscription-id>` with the id of the management subscription you created in the previous phase.
`subscription_id_identity`	`TF_VAR`	`<identity-subscription-id>`	Replace `<identity-subscription-id>` with the id of the identity subscription you created in the previous phase.
`subscription_id_connectivity`	`TF_VAR`	`<connectivity-subscription-id>`	Replace `<connectivity-subscription-id>` with the id of the connectivity subscription you created in the previous phase.
`target_directory`	`TF_VAR`	`""`	This is the directory where the ALZ module code will be created. This defaults a directory called `local-output` in the root of the accelerator output directory if not supplied.
`create_bootstrap_resources_in_azure`	`TF_VAR`	`true`	This determines whether the bootstrap will create the bootstrap resources in Azure. This defaults to `true`.
`bootstrap_subscription_id`	`TF_VAR`	`""`	Enter the id of the subscription in which you would like to deploy the bootstrap resources in Azure. If left blank, the subscription you are connected to via `az login` will be used. In most cases this is the management subscription, but you can specifiy a separate subscription if you prefer.
`service_name`	`TF_VAR`	`alz`	This is used to build up the names of your Azure and Azure DevOps resources, for example `rg-<service_name>-mgmt-uksouth-001`. We recommend using `alz` for this.
`environment_name`	`TF_VAR`	`mgmt`	This is used to build up the names of your Azure and Azure DevOps resources, for example `rg-alz-<environment_name>-uksouth-001`. We recommend using `mgmt` for this.
`postfix_number`	`TF_VAR`	`1`	This is used to build up the names of your Azure and Azure DevOps resources, for example `rg-alz-mgmt-uksouth-<postfix_number>`. We recommend using `1` for this.
`grant_permissions_to_current_user`	`TF_VAR`	`true`	This determines whether the bootstrap will grant the current user permissions to the management group structure created by the accelerator. This defaults to `true` so that the starter module can be immediately deployed from the local file system. Set this to `false` if you itend to wire up CI/CD with your own provider.

Now head over to your chosen starter module documentation to get the specific inputs for that module. Come back here when you are done.
- [Bicep Complete Starter Module][wiki_starter_module_bicep_complete]

In your PowerShell Core (pwsh) terminal run the module:

# Windows (adjust the paths to match your setup)
Deploy-Accelerator -inputs "c:\accelerator\config\inputs.yaml" -output "c:\accelerator\output"

# Linux/Mac (adjust the paths to match your setup)
Deploy-Accelerator -inputs "/accelerator/config/inputs.yaml" -output "/accelerator/output"

You will see a Terraform init and apply happen.
There will be a pause after the plan phase you allow you to validate what is going to be deployed.
If you are happy with the plan, then type yes and hit enter.
The Terraform will apply and your environment will be bootstrapped.
You will find the output in the /accelerator/output/local-output folder if you didn’t specifiy a different location for target_directory.

Next Steps

Now head to Phase 3