This QuickStart guide offers step-by-step instructions for integrating Azure Verified Modules (AVM) into your solutions. It includes the initial setup, essential tools, and configurations required to deploy and manage your Azure resources efficiently using AVM.
The AVM Key Vault resource module, used as an example in this chapter, simplifies the deployment and management of Azure Key Vaults, ensuring secure storage and access to your secrets, keys, and certificates.
Leveraging Azure Verified Modules
Using AVM ensures that your infrastructure-as-code deployments follow Microsoft’s best practices and guidelines, providing a consistent and reliable foundation for your cloud solutions. AVM helps accelerate your development process, reduce the risk of misconfigurations, and enhance the security and compliance of your applications.
Using default values
The default values provided by AVM are generally safe, as they follow best practices and ensure a secure and reliable setup. However, it is important to review these values to ensure they meet your specific requirements and compliance needs. Customizing the default values may be necessary to align with your organization’s policies and the specific needs of your solution.
Exploring examples and module features
You can find examples and detailed documentation for each AVM module in their respective code repository’s README.MD file, which details features, input parameters, and outputs. The module’s documentation also provides comprehensive usage examples, covering various scenarios and configurations. Additionally, you can explore the module’s source code repository. This information will help you understand the full capabilities of the module and how to effectively integrate it into your solutions.
Subsections of Quickstart
Bicep Quickstart Guide
Introduction
This guide explains how to use an Azure Verified Module (AVM) in your Bicep workflow. By leveraging AVM modules, you can rapidly deploy and manage Azure infrastructure without having to write extensive code from scratch.
In this guide, you will deploy a Key Vault resource and a Personal Access Token as a secret.
This article is intended for a typical ‘infra-dev’ user (cloud infrastructure professional) who has a basic understanding of Azure and Bicep but is new to Azure Verified Modules and wants to learn how to deploy a module in the easiest way using AVM.
Make sure you have these tools set up before proceeding.
Module Discovery
Find your module
In this scenario, you need to deploy a Key Vault resource and some of its child resources, such as a secret. Let’s find the AVM module that will help us achieve this.
There are two primary ways for locating published Bicep Azure Verified Modules:
Option 1 (preferred): Using IntelliSense in the Bicep extension of Visual Studio Code, and
Start typing module, then give your module a symbolic name, such as myModule.
Use IntelliSense to select br/public.
The list of all AVM modules published in the Bicep Public Registry will show up. Use this to explore the published modules.
Note
The Bicep VSCode extension is reading metadata through this JSON file. All modules are added to this file, as part of the publication process. This lists all the modules marked as Published or Orphaned on the AVM Bicep module index pages.
Select the module you want to use and the version you want to deploy. Note how you can type full or partial module names to filter the list.
Right click on the module’s path and select Go to definition or hit F12 to see the module’s source code. You can toggle between the Bicep and the JSON view.
Hover over the module’s symbolic name to view its documentation URL. By clicking on it, you will be directed to the module’s GitHub folder in the bicep-registry-modules (BRM) repository. There, you can access the source code and documentation, as illustrated below.
Option 2: Use the AVM Bicep Module Index
Searching the Azure Verified Module indexes is the most complete way to discover published as well as planned (proposed) modules. As shown in the video above, use the following steps to locate a specific module on the AVM website:
Expand the Module Indexes menu item and select the Bicep sub-menu item.
Select the menu item for the module type you are searching for: Resource, Pattern, or Utility.
Note
Since the Key Vault module used as an example in this guide is published as an AVM resource module, it can be found under the resource modules section in the AVM Bicep module index.
A detailed description of module classification types can be found under the related section here.
Select the Published modules link from the table of contents at the top of the page.
Use the in-page search feature of your browser. In most Windows browsers you can access it using the CTRL + F keyboard shortcut.
Enter a search term to find the module you are looking for - e.g., Key Vault.
Move through the search results until you locate the desired module. If you are unable to find a published module, return to the table of contents and expand the All modules link to search both published and proposed modules - i.e., modules that are planned, likely in development but not published yet.
In the module’s documentation, you can find detailed information about the module’s functionality, components, input parameters, outputs and more. The documentation also provides comprehensive usage examples, covering various scenarios and configurations.
Explore the Key Vault module’s documentation for usage examples and to understand its functionality, input parameters, and outputs.
Note the mandatory and optional parameters in the Parameters section.
Review the Usage examples section. AVM modules include multiple tests that can be found under the tests folder. These tests are also used as the basis of the usage examples ensuring they are always up-to-date and deployable.
In this example, you will deploy a secret in a new Key Vault instance with minimal input. AVM provides default parameter values with security and reliability being core principles. These settings apply the recommendations of the Well Architected Framework where possible and appropriate.
Note how Example 2 does most of what you need to achieve.
Create your new solution using AVM
In this section, you will develop a Bicep template that references the AVM Key Vault module and its child resources and features. These include secret and role based access control configurations that grant permissions to a user.
Start VSCode (make sure the Bicep extension is installed) and open a folder in which you want to work.
Create a main.bicep and a dev.bicepparam file, which will hold parameters for your Key Vault deployment.
Copy the content below into your main.bicep file. We have included comments to distinguish between the two different occurrences of the names attribute.
module myKeyVault 'br/public:avm/res/key-vault/vault:0.11.0' = {
name: // the name of the module's deployment params: {
name: '<keyVaultName>'// the name of the Key Vault instance - length and character limits apply }
}
Note
For Azure Key Vaults, the name must be globally unique. When you deploy the Key Vault, ensure you select a name that is alphanumeric, twenty-four characters or less, and unique enough to ensure no one else has used the name for their Key Vault. If the name has been previously taken, you will get an error.
After setting the values for the required properties, the module can be deployed. This minimal configuration automatically applies the security and reliability recommendations of the Well Architected Framework where possible and appropriate. These settings can be overridden if needed.
Bicep-specific configuration
It is recommended to create a bicepconfig.json file, and enable use-recent-module-versions, which warns you to use the latest available version of the AVM module.
// This is a Bicep configuration file. It can be used to control how Bicep operates and to customize
// validation settings for the Bicep linter. The linter relies on these settings when evaluating your
// Bicep files for best practices. For further information, please refer to the official documentation at:
// https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/bicep/bicep-config
{
"analyzers": {
"core": {
"rules": {
"use-recent-module-versions": {
"level": "warning",
"message": "The module version is outdated. Please consider updating to the latest version." }
}
}
}
}
Define the Key Vault instance
In this scenario - and every other real-world setup - there is more that you need to configure. You can open the module’s documentation by hovering over its symbolic name to see all of the module’s capabilities - including supported parameters.
Note
The Bicep extension facilitates code-completion, enabling you to easily locate and utilize the Azure Verified Module. This feature also provides the necessary properties for a module, allowing you to begin typing and leverage IntelliSense for completion.
Add parameters and values to the main.bicep file to customize your configuration. These parameters are used for passing in the Key Vault name and enabling purge protection. You might not want to enable the latter in a non-production environment, as it makes it harder to delete and recreate resources.
The main.bicep file will now look like this:
// the scope, the deployment deploys resources totargetScope = 'resourceGroup'// parameters and default valuesparam keyVaultName string
@description('Disable for development deployments.')
param enablePurgeProtection bool = true// the resources to deploymodule myKeyVault 'br/public:avm/res/key-vault/vault:0.11.0' = {
name: 'key-vault-deployment' params: {
name: keyVaultName
enablePurgeProtection: enablePurgeProtection
// more properties are not needed, as AVM provides default values }
}
Note that the Key Vault instance will be deployed within a resource group scope in our example.
Create a dev.bicepparam file (this is optional) and set parameter values for your environment. You can now pass these values by referencing this file at the time of deployment (using PowerShell or Azure CLI).
using'main.bicep'// environment specific valuesparam keyVaultName = '<keyVaultName>'param enablePurgeProtection = false
Create a secret and set permissions
Add a secret to the Key Vault instance and grant permissions to a user to work with the secret. Sample role assignments can be found in Example 3: Using large parameter set. See Parameter: roleAssignments for a list of pre-defined roles that you can reference by name instead of a GUID. This is a key benefit of using AVM, as the code is easy to read and increases the maintainability.
You can also leverage User-defined data types and simplify the parameterization of the modules instead of guessing or looking up parameters. Therefore, first import UDTs from the Key Vault and common types module and leverage the UDTs in your Bicep and parameter files.
For a role assignment, the principal ID is needed, that will be granted a role (specified by its name) on the resource. Your own ID can be found out with az ad signed-in-user show --query id.
// the scope, the deployment deploys resources totargetScope = 'resourceGroup'// parameters and default valuesparam keyVaultName string
// the PAT token is a secret and should not be stored in the Bicep(parameter) file.// It can be passed via the commandline, if you don't use a parameter file.@secure()
param patToken string = newGuid()
@description('Enabled by default. Disable for development deployments')
param enablePurgeProtection bool = trueimport { roleAssignmentType } from 'br/public:avm/utl/types/avm-common-types:0.4.0'// the role assignments are optional in the Key Vault moduleparam roleAssignments roleAssignmentType[]?
// the resources to deploymodule myKeyVault 'br/public:avm/res/key-vault/vault:0.11.0' = {
name: 'key-vault-deployment' params: {
name: keyVaultName
enablePurgeProtection: enablePurgeProtection
secrets: [
{
name: 'PAT' value: patToken
}
]
roleAssignments: roleAssignments
}
}
The secrets parameter references a UDT (User-defined data type) that is part of the Key Vault module and enables code completion for easy usage. There is no need to look up what attributes the secret object might have. Start typing and tab-complete what you need from the content offered by the Bicep extension’s integration with AVM.
The bicep parameter file now looks like this:
// reference to the Bicep file to set the contextusing'main.bicep'// environment specific valuesparam keyVaultName = '<keyVaultName>'param enablePurgeProtection = false// for security reasons, the secret value must not be stored in this file.// You can change it later in the deployed Key Vault instance, where you also renew it after expiration.param roleAssignments = [
{
principalId: '<principalId>'// using the name of the role instead of looking up the GUID (which can also be used) roleDefinitionIdOrName: 'Key Vault Secrets Officer' }
]
Note
The display names for roleDefinitionIdOrName can be acquired the following two ways:
From the builtInRoleNames variable in the module’s source code. To get there, hit F12 while the cursor is on the part of the module path starting with br/public:.
Boost your development with VS Code IntelliSense
Leverage the IntelliSense feature in VS Code to speed up your development process. IntelliSense provides code completion, possible parameter values and structure. It helps you write code more efficiently by providing context-aware suggestions as you type.
Here is how quickly you can deliver the solution detailed in this section:
Deploy your solution
Now that your template and parameter file is ready, you can deploy your solution to Azure. Use PowerShell or the Azure CLI to deploy your solution.
Deploy with
# Log in to AzureConnect-AzAccount
# Select your subscriptionSet-AzContext -SubscriptionId '<subscriptionId>'# Deploy a resource groupNew-AzResourceGroup -Name 'avm-quickstart-rg' -Location 'germanywestcentral'# Invoke your deploymentNew-AzResourceGroupDeployment -DeploymentName 'avm-quickstart-deployment' -ResourceGroupName 'avm-quickstart-rg' -TemplateParameterFile 'dev.bicepparam' -TemplateFile 'main.bicep'
# Log in to Azureaz login
# Select your subscriptionaz account set --subscription '<subscriptionId>'# Deploy a resource groupaz group create --name 'avm-quickstart-rg' --location 'germanywestcentral'# Invoke your deploymentaz deployment group create --name 'avm-quickstart' --resource-group 'avm-quickstart-rg' --template-file 'main.bicep' --parameters 'dev.bicepparam'
Use the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, or the Azure CLI to verify that the Key Vault instance and secret have been successfully created with the correct configuration.
Clean up your environment
When you are ready, you can remove the infrastructure deployed in this example. The following commands will remove all resources created by your deployment:
Clean up with
# Delete the resource groupRemove-AzResourceGroup -Name "avm-quickstart-rg" -Force
# Purge the Key VaultRemove-AzKeyVault -VaultName "<keyVaultName>" -Location "germanywestcentral" -InRemovedState -Force
# Delete the resource groupaz group delete --name 'avm-quickstart-rg' --yes --no-wait
# Purge the Key Vaultaz keyvault purge --name '<keyVaultName>' --no-wait
Congratulations, you have successfully leveraged an AVM Bicep module to deploy resources in Azure!
Tip
We welcome your contributions and feedback to help us improve the AVM modules and the overall experience for the community!
This guide explains how to use an Azure Verified Module (AVM) in your Terraform workflow. With AVM modules, you can quickly deploy and manage Azure infrastructure without writing extensive code from scratch.
In this guide, you will deploy a Key Vault resource and generate and store a key.
This article is intended for a typical ‘infra-dev’ user (cloud infrastructure professional) who is new to Azure Verified Modules and wants to learn how to deploy a module in the easiest way using AVM. The user has a basic understanding of Azure and Terraform.
Before you begin, ensure you have these tools installed in your development environment.
Module Discovery
Find your module
In this scenario, you need to deploy a Key Vault resource and some of its child resources, such as a key. Let’s find the AVM module that will help us achieve this.
There are two primary ways for locating published Terraform Azure Verified Modules:
The easiest way to find published AVM Terraform modules is by searching the Terraform Registry. Follow these steps to locate a specific module, as shown in the video above.
In the search bar at the top of the screen type avm. Optionally, append additional search terms to narrow the search results. (e.g., avm key vault for AVM modules with Key Vault in the name.)
Select see all to display the full list of published modules matching your search criteria.
Find the module you wish to use and select it from the search results.
Note
It is possible to discover other unofficial modules with avm in the name using this search method. Look for the Partner tag in the module title to determine if the module is part of the official set.
Use the AVM Terraform Module Index
Searching the Azure Verified Module indexes is the most complete way to discover published as well as planned modules - shown as proposed. As presented in the video above, use the following steps to locate a specific module on the AVM website:
Expand the Module Indexes menu item and select the Terraform sub-menu item.
Select the menu item for the module type you are searching for: Resource, Pattern, or Utility.
Note
Since the Key Vault module used as an example in this guide is published as an AVM resource module, it can be found under the resource modules section in the AVM Terraform module index.
A detailed description of each module classification type can be found under the related section here.
Select the Published modules link from the table of contents at the top of the page.
Use the in-page search feature of your browser (in most Windows browsers you can access it using the CTRL + F keyboard shortcut).
Enter a search term to find the module you are looking for - e.g., Key Vault.
Move through the search results until you locate the desired module. If you are unable to find a published module, return to the table of contents and expand the All modules link to search both published and proposed modules - i.e., modules that are planned, likely in development but not published yet.
After finding the desired module, click on the module’s name. This link will lead you to the official Hashicorp Terraform Registry page for the module where you can find the module’s documentation and examples.
Module details and examples
Once you have identified the AVM module in the Terraform Registry you can find detailed information about the module’s functionality, components, input parameters, outputs and more. The documentation also provides comprehensive usage examples, covering various scenarios and configurations.
Explore the Key Vault module’s documentation and usage examples to understand its functionality, input variables, and outputs.
Note the Examples drop-down list and explore each example
Review the Readme tab to see module provider minimums, a list of resources and data sources used by the module, a nicely formatted version of the inputs and outputs, and a reference to any submodules that may be called.
Explore the Inputs tab and observe how each input has a detailed description and a type definition for you to use when adding input values to your module configuration.
Explore the Outputs tab and review each of the outputs that are exported by the AVM module for use by other modules in your deployment.
Finally, review the Resources tab to get a better understanding of the resources defined in the module.
In this example, your will to deploy a secret in a new Key Vault instance without needing to provide other parameters. The AVM Key Vault resource module provides these capabilities and does so with security and reliability being core principles. The default settings of the module also apply the recommendations of the Well Architected Framework where possible and appropriate.
Note how the create-key example seems to do what you need to achieve.
Create your new solution using AVM
Now that you have found the module details, you can use the content from the Terraform Registry to speed up your development in the following ways:
Option 1: Create a solution using AVM module examples: duplicate a module example and edit it for your needs. This is useful if you are starting without any existing infrastructure and need to create supporting resources like resource groups as part of your deployment.
Option 2: Create a solution by changing the AVM module input values: add the AVM module to an existing solution that already includes other resources. This method requires some knowledge of the resource(s) being deployed so that you can make choices about optional features configured in your solution’s version of the module.
Each deployment method includes a section below so that you can choose the method which best fits your needs.
Note
For Azure Key Vaults, the name must be globally unique. When you deploy the Key Vault, ensure you select a name that is alphanumeric, twenty-four characters or less, and unique enough to ensure no one else has used the name for their Key Vault. If the name has been used previously, you will get an error.
Option 1: Create a solution using AVM module examples
Leverage the following steps as a template for how to leverage examples for bootstrapping your new solution code. The Key Vault resource module is used here as an example, but in practice you may choose any module that applies to your scenario.
Locate and select the Examples drop down menu in the middle of the Key Vault module page.
From the drop-down list select an example whose name most closely aligns with your scenario - e.g., create-key.
When the example page loads, read the example description to determine if this is the desired example. If it is not, return to the module main page, and select a different example until you are satisfied that the example covers the scenario you are trying to deploy. If you are unable to find a suitable example, leverage the last two steps in the option 2 instructions to modify the inputs of the selected example to match your requirements.
Scroll to the code block for the example and select the Copy button on the top right of the block to copy the content to the clipboard.
➕ Click here to copy the sample code from the video.
provider"azurerm" {
features {}
}
terraform {
required_version = "~> 1.9"required_providers {
azurerm = {
source = "hashicorp/azurerm"version = ">= 3.71" }
http = {
source = "hashicorp/http"version = "~> 3.4" }
random = {
source = "hashicorp/random"version = "~> 3.5" }
}
}
module"regions" {
source = "Azure/avm-utl-regions/azurerm"version = "0.1.0"}# This allows us to randomize the region for the resource group.
resource"random_integer""region_index" {
max = length(module.regions.regions) -1min = 0}# This ensures you have unique CAF compliant names for our resources.
module"naming" {
source = "Azure/naming/azurerm"version = "0.3.0"}
resource"azurerm_resource_group""this" {
location = module.regions.regions[random_integer.region_index.result].namename = module.naming.resource_group.name_unique}# Get current IP address for use in KV firewall rules
data"http""ip" {
url = "https://api.ipify.org/"retry {
attempts = 5max_delay_ms = 1000min_delay_ms = 500 }
}
data"azurerm_client_config""current" {}
module"key_vault" {
source = "Azure/avm-res-keyvault-vault/azurerm"name = module.naming.key_vault.name_uniquelocation = azurerm_resource_group.this.locationenable_telemetry = var.enable_telemetryresource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.this.nametenant_id = data.azurerm_client_config.current.tenant_idpublic_network_access_enabled = truekeys = {
cmk_for_storage_account = {
key_opts = [
"decrypt",
"encrypt",
"sign",
"unwrapKey",
"verify",
"wrapKey" ]
key_type:"RSA"name = "cmk-for-storage-account"key_size = 2048 }
}
role_assignments = {
deployment_user_kv_admin = {
role_definition_id_or_name = "Key Vault Administrator"principal_id = data.azurerm_client_config.current.object_id }
}
wait_for_rbac_before_key_operations = {
create = "60s" }
network_acls = {
bypass = "AzureServices"ip_rules = ["${data.http.ip.response_body}/32"]
}
}
In your IDE - Visual Studio Code in our example - create the main.tf file for your new solution.
Paste the content from the clipboard into main.tf.
AVM examples frequently use naming and/or region selection AVM utility modules to generate deployment region and/or naming values as well as any default values for required fields. If you want to use a specific region name or other custom resource values, remove the existing region and naming module calls and replace example input values with the new desired custom input values.
Once supporting resources such as resource groups have been modified, locate the module call for the AVM module - i.e., module "keyvault".
AVM module examples use dot notation for a relative reference that is useful during module testing. However, you will need to replace the relative reference with a source reference that points to the Terraform Registry source location. In most cases, this source reference has been left as a comment in the module example to simplify replacing the existing source dot reference. Perform the following two actions to update the source:
Delete the existing source definition that uses a dot reference - i.e., source = "../../".
Uncomment the Terraform Registry source reference by deleting the # sign at the start of the commented source line - i.e., source = "Azure/avm-res-keyvault-vault/azurerm".
Note
If the module example does not include a commented Terraform Registry source reference, you will need to copy it from the module’s main documentation page. Use the following steps to do so:
Use the breadcrumbs to leave the example documentation and return to the module’s primary Terraform Registry documentation page.
Locate the Provision Instructions box on the right side of the module’s Terraform Registry page in your web browser.
Select the second line that starts with source = from the code block - e.g., source = "Azure/avm-res-keyvault-vault/azurerm". Copy it onto the clipboard.
Return to your code solution and Paste the clipboard’s content where you previously deleted the source dot reference - e.g., source = "../../".
AVM module examples use a variable to enable or disable the telemetry collection. Update the enable_telemetry input value to true or false. - e.g. enable_telemetry = true
Save your main.tf file changes and then proceed to the guide section for running your solution code.
Option 2: Create a solution by changing the AVM module input values
Click here to copy the sample code from the video.
Use the following steps as a guide for the custom implementation of an AVM Module in your solution code. This instruction path assumes that you have an existing Terraform file that you want to add the AVM module to.
Locate the Provision Instructions box on the right side of the module’s Terraform Registry page in your web browser.
Select the module template code from the code block and Copy it onto the clipboard.
Switch to your IDE and Paste the contents of the clipboard into your solution’s .tf Terraform file - main.tf in our example.
Return to the module’s Terraform Registry page in the browser and select the Inputs tab.
Review each input and add the inputs with the desired target value to the solution’s code - i.e., name = "custom_name".
Once you are satisfied that you have included all required inputs and any optional inputs, Save your file and continue to the next section.
Deploy your solution
After completing your solution development, you can move to the deployment stage. Follow these steps for a basic Terraform workflow:
Open the command line and login to Azure using the Azure cli
azlogin
If your account has access to multiple tenants, you may need to modify the command to az login --tenant <tenant id> where “<tenant id>” is the guid for the target tenant.
After logging in, select the target subscription from the list of subscriptions that you have access to.
Change the path to the directory where your completed terraform solution files reside.
Note
Many AVM modules depend on the AzureRM 4.0 Terraform provider which mandates that a subscription id is configured. If you receive an error indicating that subscription_id is a required provider property, you will need to set a subscription id value for the provider. For Unix based systems (Linux or MacOS) you can configure this by running export ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID=<your subscription guid> on the command line. On Microsoft Windows, you can perform the same operation by running set ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID="<your subscription guid>" from the Windows command prompt or by running $env:ARM_SUBSCRIPTION_ID="<your subscription guid>" from a powershell prompt. Replace the “<your subscription id>” notation in each command with your Azure subscription’s unique id value.
Initialize your Terraform project. This command downloads the necessary providers and modules to the working directory.
terraforminit
Before applying the configuration, it is good practice to validate it to ensure there are no syntax errors.
terraformvalidate
Create a deployment plan. This step shows what actions Terraform will take to reach the desired state defined in your configuration.
terraformplan
Review the plan to ensure that only the desired actions are in the plan output.
Apply the configuration and create the resources defined in your configuration file. This command will prompt you to confirm the deployment prior to making changes. Type yes to create your solution’s infrastructure.
terraformapply
Info
If you are confident in your changes, you can add the -auto-approve switch to bypass manual approval: terraform apply -auto-approve
Once the deployment completes, validate that the infrastructure is configured as desired.
Info
A local terraform.tfstate file and a state backup file have been created during the deployment. The use of local state is acceptable for small temporary configurations, but production or long-lived installations should use a remote state configuration where possible. Configuring remote state is out of scope for this guide, but you can find details on using an Azure storage account for this purpose in the Microsoft Learn documentation.
Clean up your environment
When you are ready, you can remove the infrastructure deployed in this example. Use the following command to delete all resources created by your deployment:
terraformdestroy
Note
Most Key Vault deployment examples activate soft-delete functionality as a default. The terraform destroy command will remove the Key Vault resource but does not purge a soft-deleted vault. You may encounter errors if you attempt to re-deploy a Key Vault with the same name during the soft-delete retention window. If you wish to purge the soft-delete for this example you can run az keyvault purge -n <keyVaultName> -l <regionName> using the Azure CLI, or Remove-AzKeyVault -VaultName "<keyVaultName>" -Location "<regionName>" -InRemovedState using Azure PowerShell.
Congratulations, you have successfully leveraged Terraform and AVM to deploy resources in Azure!
Tip
We welcome your contributions and feedback to help us improve the AVM modules and the overall experience for the community!