Today I took the time and attended a meetup about the Azure Developer CLI (azd) and I wanted to share my thoughts on this with you.

In case you have missed it, you can find the recording on youtube (I highly recommend watching it 🤓).

Big shoutout to the speakers for their interesting talk and making me aware of this awesome tool that I want to share with you, too. 🙏

No clue what azd is? I got you covered! Here is a quick overview of the most important things you need to know about azd.

What is azd?

The Azure Developer CLI (“azd”) is a CLI tool that is specifically tailored to assist developers in their daily project work. It utilizes best practices and provides a lot of useful features that ensure a smooth and efficient development experience.

What can azd do?

Main part of the azd CLI are predefined templates. These templates are used to set up software projects in a standardized way. The templates are based on best practices and cover the following building blocks:

Development environment
Source / Test directories
CI/CD pipelines
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

How cool is that? 🤩

How does it work?

Once you installed the azd on your local machine, you can directly start browsing the already available templates. As of now, there are a couple of templates available for different programming languages and frameworks. You are also able to create your own templates and share them with the community.

Follow these steps to get started:

Install azd on your local machine.

You can find the installation instructions on Microsoft Learn
Browse the available templates

Check out a curated list of available community templates on azure.github.io/awesome-azd
Create a new project based on a template
Start developing
Deploy your project directly from your local machine with a single command 🤯

So this is a neat tool, but why should I use it?

Transfer it into the business context: As a developer you might be familiar with the following situation: You are working on a project and you need to set up a new environment. You need to create a new repository, set up a CI/CD pipeline, create a new resource group, etc. You are probably doing this manually, right? This is a tedious and error-prone task - not to mention the time you are wasting on it searching for outdated, inconsistent and incomplete documentation on company standards.

Now, let’s imagine you are a consultant working for multiple clients, all with their own standards and requirements. You are probably spending a lot of time on setting up new projects and environments. This is time you would rather spend on actual development work… 🤔

This is where azd comes into play. It helps you to set up new projects in a standardized way. It ensures that you are following best practices and it saves you a lot of time. You can focus on the actual development work and don’t have to worry about the setup of your project.

Now you as a developer are needed: Define the standards and best practices for your area and create your highly customizable templates that are tailored to your needs. Share them with your colleagues to ensure that everyone is following the same standards. This way you can save a lot of time and budget. Furthermore, onboarding consultants and new employees will be a lot easier and faster - and with less facepalms while worrying about naming conventions. 🤦‍♂️

Conclusion

I am really excited about this tool and I am looking forward to using it in my daily work. I hope you do so, too. 🤓

Thanks again to the speakers and Azure Rosenheim Meetup for organizing this. 🙏