Azure Deployment Action

This repository offers a GitHub Action for automating the deployment and management of Azure resources using ARM Templates or Bicep files. It integrates smoothly into GitHub workflows, allowing developers to manage Azure infrastructure directly within their CI/CD pipelines.

With this action, users can:

• Deploy resources via Azure Deployments or manage environments using Deployment Stacks.
• Perform various operations like creating, validating, and previewing resource changes using the "What If" feature.

Key Configuration Options

• Execution Type (type): Specifies the mode of execution, whether deploying individual resources (deployment) or managing full environment stacks (deploymentStack).
• Operations (operation): Users can create, validate, or preview changes before deploying resources. For deployment stacks, deletion and lifecycle management are also supported.
• Scope (scope): Defines the scope at which resources are deployed, such as tenant, management group, subscription, or resource group.
• Template & Parameters: Paths to the ARM or Bicep templates (template-file) and associated parameter files (parameters-file), or the URI if they are hosted remotely (template-uri).
• What If Analysis: Leverage the what-if operation to preview potential changes before applying them, including options to exclude certain change types (what-if-exclude-change-type).
• Unmanaged Resource Actions: Specify actions to take on unmanaged resources (action-on-unmanage-resources) or entire resource groups (action-on-unmanage-resourcegroups), such as deleting or detaching them.

This action simplifies Azure resource management, providing flexibility through various configurations, making it suitable for automating both simple and complex infrastructure scenarios.

Usage

Deployment

- name: Deployment
  uses: azure/bicep-deploy@v1
  with:
    type: deployment
    operation: create
    name: Development
    location: westus2
    scope: subscription
    subscription-id: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
    template-file: ./main.bicep
    parameters-file: ./main.bicepparam

Deployment Stack

- name: Deployment
  uses: azure/bicep-deploy@v1
  with:
    type: deploymentStack
    operation: create
    name: Development
    location: westus2
    scope: subscription
    subscription-id: 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
    template-file: ./main.bicep
    parameters-file: ./main.bicepparam
    action-on-unmanage-resources: delete
    action-on-unmanage-resourcegroups: delete
    deny-settings-mode: denyWriteAndDelete

For end-to-end workflow examples, please see Deployment & Deployment Stacks.

Dependencies

• Login: This action is used to authenticate the GitHub Actions workflow with Azure Resource Manager (ARM).
• Checkout: This action checks out the repository where the workflow is running onto the GitHub Actions runner.

Inputs

The inputs for this action provide flexibility and control for managing deployment operations and resources in Azure. By combining inputs like type, operation, and scope, workflows can be configured to handle a variety of scenarios, from deploying individual resources to managing comprehensive deployment stacks. Inputs such as template-file, parameters-file, and tags allow for easy customization of deployment configurations and metadata. Advanced features, including actions-on-unmanaged-resources and "What If" analysis, ensure deployments are predictable and secure. These options make it simple to integrate Azure resource management into CI/CD workflows.

Name	Description	Allowed Values
type	Specifies the execution type.	deployment, deploymentStack
operation	Specifies the operation to perform.	deployment: create, validate, whatIf deploymentStack: create, delete, validate
name	Specifies the name of the deployment or deploymentStack.	Free-text
location	Specifies the location of the deployment or deploymentStack.	Free-text
scope	Specifies the scope of the deployment or deploymentStack.	deployment: tenant, managementGroup, subscription, resourceGroup deploymentStack: managementGroup, subscription,resourceGroup
tenant-id	Specifies the tenant ID.	Free-text
management-group-id	Specifies the management group ID.	Free-text
subscription-id	Specifies the subscription ID.	Free-text
resource-group-name	Specifies the resource group name.	Free-text
template-file	Specifies the path to the template file.	Free-text
template-spec	Specifies the template spec resource ID.	Free-text
template-uri	Specifies the HTTP URI of the template.	Free-text
parameters-file	Specifies the path to the parameters file.	Free-text
parameters	Specifies parameters in a JSON format.	Free-text
what-if-exclude-change-types	Specifies the change types to exclude from the "What If" operation.	Free-text
action-on-unmanage-resources	Specifies the action to take on unmanaged resources.	delete, detach
action-on-unmanage-resourcegroups	Specifies the action to take on unmanaged resource groups.	delete, detach
action-on-unmanage-managementgroup	Specifies the action to take on unmanaged management groups.	delete, detach
deny-settings-mode	Specifies the mode of the deny settings.	denyDelete, denyWriteAndDelete, none
deny-settings-excluded-actions	Specifies the excluded actions for the deny settings.	Free-text
deny-settings-excluded-principals	Specifies the excluded principals for the deny settings.	Free-text
bypass-stack-out-of-sync-error	Specifies whether to bypass the stack out of sync error.	true, false
description	Specifies the description of the deploymentStack.	Free-text
tags	Specifies the tags for the deploymentStack.	Free-text
masked-outputs	Specifies output names to mask values for.	Free-text

Outputs

The action provides outputs from the deployment operation, which can be accessed in subsequent steps of a workflow. These outputs are useful for dynamically referencing values generated during the deployment process, such as resource IDs, endpoint URLs, or other outputs defined in Bicep templates.

Accessing Outputs

After the deployment step has been executed, outputs can be accessed using the outputs property of the step's ID. For example, if the deployment step's ID is deployment, its outputs can be accessed as ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.<outputName> }}.

- name: Print Deployment Outputs
  run: |
    echo "intOutput: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.intOutput }}"
    echo "stringOutput: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.stringOutput }}"

Defining Outputs in Bicep

Outputs are defined in the Bicep template using the output keyword. Outputs that need to be used in the workflow must be declared in the Bicep template being deployed. For example:

output intOutput int = 42
output stringOutput string = 'Hello, World!'

For detailed guidance, refer to the Bicep Outputs documentation.

Practical Usage

1. Define Outputs in the Bicep Template: Declare the outputs in the .bicep file as shown above.
2. Reference Outputs in Workflow: Use the ${{ steps.<step_id>.outputs.<output_name> }} syntax in subsequent steps to access the values.

These outputs can then be leveraged for:

• Debugging deployment results.
• Passing values dynamically to other steps or jobs.
• Integrating deployment results into a CI/CD pipeline.

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact [email protected] with any additional questions or comments.

Trademarks

This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.