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ยท 5 min read
Savannah Ostrowski

Welcome to Beyond #30DaysOfServerless! in October!

Yes, it's October!! And since we ended #ServerlessSeptember with a focus on End-to-End Development for Serverless on Azure, we thought it would be good to share updates in October that can help you skill up even further.

Today, we're following up on the Code to Cloud with azd blog post (Day #29) where we introduced the Azure Developer CLI (azd), an open-source tool for streamlining your end-to-end developer experience going from local development environment to Azure cloud. In today's post, we celebrate the October 2022 release of the tool, with three cool new features.

And if it's October, it must be #Hacktoberfest!! Read on to learn about how you can take advantage of one of the new features, to contribute to the azd open-source community and ecosystem!

Ready? Let's go!


What We'll Coverโ€‹

  • Azure Friday: Introducing the Azure Developer CLI (Video)
  • October 2022 Release: What's New in the Azure Developer CLI?
    • Azure Pipelines for CI/CD: Learn more
    • Improved Infrastructure as Code structure via Bicep modules: Learn more
    • A new azd template gallery: The new azd-templates gallery for community use! Learn more
  • Awesome-Azd: The new azd-templates gallery for Community use
    • Features: discover, create, contribute, request - templates
    • Hacktoberfest: opportunities to contribute in October - and beyond!


Azure Fridayโ€‹

This post is a follow-up to our #ServerlessSeptember post on Code to Cloud with Azure Developer CLI where we introduced azd, a new open-source tool that makes it quick and simple for you to move your application from a local development environment to Azure, streamlining your end-to-end developer workflow in the process.

Prefer to watch a video overview? I have you covered! Check out my recent conversation with Scott Hanselman on Azure Friday where we:

  • talked about the code-to-cloud developer journey
  • walkthrough the ins and outs of an azd template
  • explored Azure Developer CLI commands in the terminal and VS Code, and
  • (probably most importantly) got a web app up and running on Azure with a database, Key Vault and monitoring all in a couple of minutes

October Releaseโ€‹

We're pleased to announce the October 2022 release of the Azure Developer CLI (currently 0.3.0-beta.2). Read the release announcement for more details. Here are the highlights:

  • Azure Pipelines for CI/CD: This addresses azure-dev#101, adding support for Azure Pipelines (alongside GitHub Actions) as a CI/CD provider. Learn more about usage and related documentation.
  • Improved Infrastructure as Code structure via Bicep modules: This addresses azure-dev#543, which recognized the complexity of using a single resources.bicep file for all resources. With this release, azd templates now come with Bicep modules organized by purpose making it easier to edit and understand. Learn more about this structure, and how to use it.
  • New Templates Gallery - awesome-azd: This addresses azure-dev#398, which aimed to make templates more discoverable and easier to contribute. Learn more about how the new gallery improves the template discovery experience.

In the next section, we'll dive briefly into the last feature, introducing the new awesome-azd site and resource for templates discovery and contribution. And, since it's #Hacktoberfest season, we'll talk about the Contributor Guide and the many ways you can contribute to this project - with, or without, code.


It's awesome-azdโ€‹

Welcome to awesome-azd a new template gallery hosted on GitHub Pages, and meant to be a destination site for discovering, requesting, and contributing azd-templates for community use!

In addition, it's README reflects the awesome-list resource format, providing a location for the community to share "best of" resources for Azure Developer CLI - from blog posts and videos, to full-scale tutorials and templates.

The Gallery is organized into three main areas:

Take a minute to explore the Gallery and note the features:

  • Search for templates by name
  • Requested Templates - indicating asks from the community
  • Featured Templates - highlighting high-quality templates
  • Filters - to discover templates by and/or query combinations

Check back often to see the latest contributed templates and requests!


Hacktoberfestโ€‹

So, why is this a good time to talk about the Gallery? Because October means it's time for #Hacktoberfest - a month-long celebration of open-source projects and their maintainers, and an opportunity for first-time contributors to get support and guidance making their first pull-requests! Check out the #Hacktoberfest topic on GitHub for projects you can contribute to.

And we hope you think of awesome-azd as another possible project to contribute to.

Check out the FAQ section to learn how to create, discover, and contribute templates. Or take a couple of minutes to watch this video walkthrough from Jon Gallant:

And don't hesitate to reach out to us - either via Issues on the repo, or in the Discussions section of this site, to give us feedback!

Happy Hacking! ๐ŸŽƒ