Azure Developers: do you AZD Up?
A quick intro to the Azure Developer CLI, and how it helps you do single-command deploys of your app into Azure
It’s 2025 and us developers really shouldn’t be writing deployment scripts or pipelines from scratch, but many people I meet don’t realize how much Microsoft can help in this area. It’s true that Copilot gets much of the attention when it comes to boosting productivity on this (and it is still a great way to avoid hand coding any type of script), but it’s not the only way to get results fast.
If you’re already familiar with ‘azd up’, the magic command at center of the Azure Developer CLI, this article may not be for you. But for everyone else, you’re in for a treat!
Deploy your apps with just one command: azd up
Imagine this: you can deploy your app to Azure with a single command.
Sounds great, right? Here’s what it does:
- Scans Your Codebase: When running for first time it will read your codebase to check what Azure services are appropriate to host your app (or use a specific app template if you’d prefer)
- Builds and runs a Bicep script: It will create a complete script that provisions each resource needed to host your application into Azure
- Deploys your code: Once the resources are online, your application code is deployed including all libraries and packages you need
- Manages identities: It sets up a secure identity for your app to interact with Azure resources
- Handles secrets: It keeps your sensitive info safe by integrating with Azure Key Vault
- Configures monitoring: A new App Insights and Log Analytics Workspace is deployed and integrated with your app for easy monitoring and logging of your deployed app
Automate your CI/CD pipelines: azd pipeline
A single command to deploy is great, but most teams want to deploy on a regular rhythm through CI/CD. This is where azd pipeline comes in, which performs similar magic but on your pipeline:
- Supports GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps: You can choose which platform you want, and a matching pipeline script is created for you
- Integrates with your CI/CD platform: Once the script is available, it will deploy this into your GitHub and ADO environment on your behalf, using an Azure service principal or OIDC to integrate with your Azure subscription
- Securely uploads variables and secrets: Secrets needed for deployment of your application are uploaded into your CI/CD platform so they don’t exist in hard-coded form
Why I love AZD
Since its launch, AZD has evolved a lot, making it more user-friendly and powerful. Beyond the pure time it can save you in manual deployment, it has evolved to offer benefits such as:
- Automatically applying security best practices and avoiding common shortcuts that may leave your cloud app exposed
- Support for microservices and other complex architectures: Today’s cloud apps are made up of many connected parts, and AZD helps you deploy these correctly using platforms and toolsets like Azure Container Apps, Azure Kubernetes Service, .NET Aspire, and more
- Tear down to save costs: What comes up must go down, and azd down will de-provision any app deployed with azd up, helping you reduce costs in your dev environment
- Works for many languages: AZD now supports many app architectures across Java, Python, NodeJS and more
- Terraform support is in beta: Not using Bicep in your organization? You can now toggle AZD over to use Terraform instead
Want to see it in action?
Just head over to Awesome AZD, a library of almost 200 example applications that you can deploy to Azure with just one command.
Many of these are fantastic starter solutions for emerging areas such as GenAI RAG, Data Science, and Event-Driven Architecture. You can have most online in minutes, and some even come with devcontainer configs to allow even faster start from GitHub Codespaces.
Have fun!
