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FAQ

What is "azd"?​

The Azure Developer CLI (or azd) is an open-source tool that provides higher-level, application developer-friendly commands that map to key stages in your developer workflow so that you can focus on writing application code instead of focusing on atomic operations on Azure resources.

What is an azd template?​

Azure Developer CLI templates (azd-templates) are sample repositories created - using Azure Developer CLI defined conventions - to include the application code, tools and infrastructure code required to streamline your CI/CD pipelines. This now provides a repeatable foundation on which other teams can build, to customize, or extend, the default solution.

How do I use an azd template?​

With azd-templates, the path from "code to cloud" is just 3 steps:

  • Discovery = find a template
  • Deployment = azd up to deploy it
  • Customization = modify app code or config
READ THE DOCS

Learn more about about getting started with azd

How do I discover templates?​

There are a couple of ways to discover existing azd-template tagged repositories.

1. Using GitHub Topics​

Today, you can look at the azd-templates topic on GitHub to see tagged template repositories. However, this approach does not easily let you search for templates based on the services configured, or give you a visual sense of the architecture enabled .

This is the challenge we are hoping to solve with the gallery site shown in this project. Each template is associated with the following:

  • architecture diagram
  • template repository
  • publication date
  • contributor identity
  • description
  • service tags (for architecture components)
  • language tags (for application code)

The Gallery provides both a search capability (to discover template by name) and a filter capability (to discover templates that match a specific and/or combination of criteria).

How do I create templates?​

The azd template has this file structure defined by azd conventions

├── .devcontainer              [ For DevContainer ]
├── .github/.azdo              [ Configure GitHub workflow or Azure Pipelines ]
├── .vscode                    [ VS Code workspace configurations ]
├── infra                      [ Creates and configures Azure resources ]
│   ├── main.bicep/main.tf     [ Main infrastructure file ]
│   ├── main.parameters.json/  [ Parameters file ]
        main.tfvars.json   
├── src                        [ Contains directories for the app code ]
└── azure.yaml                 [ Describes the app and type of Azure resources]

The Azure Developer CLI (azd) tool helps you with the process of creating the template with azd init as the first step, followed by creation of the infra/ folder, updating of the azure.yaml file, and validation of template using azd up to provision and deploy resources.

READ THE DOCS

Learn more about making your codebase azdcompatible

How do I contribute templates?​

TWO WAYS TO CONTRIBUTE

You can contribute azd-templates in two contexts:

  • For an existing idea - matches a helpwanted tag
  • For your own ideas - provide the architecture diagram and tags.

Submit a PR + fill out the checklist

An internal team will review submissions

  • Validate that templates function as desired
  • Accept contribution - issue is closed.
  • Suggest modifications - issue stays open.

How are templates rated?​

This gallery will contain both Microsoft-authored azd-templates, and Community-contributed versions. Creating and maintaining templates is not a simple exercise.

In the long term, we may add other tag options to help rate templates on other criteria (e.g., recently updated, most stars, most forks etc.)

How do I request templates?​

What if you have an architecture defined, but can't find an existing azd template to jumpstart your development? You can try to create and contribute that template as one option.

We are also considering a special **help wanted** tag that allows someone to contribute a template to the gallery with an architecture diagram but no associated repository. These would now be associated with issues that would allow other community members to:

  • up vote the issue (as a priority)
  • create and contribute a template for it