Project Bicep

6 posts · Oct 2020 – Jul 2025

What this trail covers

Project Bicep is a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for ARM templates, offering a transparent abstraction of ARM templates with a cleaner syntax for code reuse. It aims to simplify infrastructure description, validation, and deployment to Azure. The language is designed for ease of learning, modularity, and robust tooling with early validation before deployment. This post details integrating Bicep templates into Azure DevOps Pipelines for automated CI/CD workflows, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments, and introduces a "build once, deploy everywhere" pattern using conditional Bicep deployment, environment variable injection, package preservation across environments, and automated CI/CD promotion from development to production.

All Microsoft trails

Jul 2025Azure Developer CLI: From Dev to Prod with One ClickThis post details how to implement a "build once, deploy everywhere" pattern using Azure Developer CLI (azd) and conditional Bicep deployment. It demonstrates using an environment variable (`AZURE_ENV_TYPE`) to drive conditional resource provisioning in Bicep for networking, storage, and App Service Plan sizing. It also enhances the `azd pipeline config` workflow to package the application once, upload it as an artifact, deploy to development, validate, download the artifact, set production environment variables, and deploy to production using the same package. The post provides a complete implementation example and step-by-step setup instructions.
Mar 2021On Prem To The Cloud: DevOps-ing Everything As Code (Ep 5)This post details the integration of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates and PowerShell scripts into an Azure DevOps Pipeline. It explains how to set up pipeline variables, triggers, jobs, tasks, and stages to automate the deployment of infrastructure and applications. The post specifically highlights the use of ARM templates and PowerShell scripts for setting up Azure policies, Desired State Configuration (DSC), and resource groups, and how these can be orchestrated within a CI/CD workflow.
Mar 2021On Prem To the Cloud: Everything As Code (Ep 4)This post details the use of Azure Policy for Compliance as Code, specifically demonstrating how to implement a policy to prevent opening port 3389 to the internet. It explains Azure Policy definitions, initiatives, and assignments, and provides a PowerShell script for deploying and managing policy definitions. The post also covers using ARM templates for Infrastructure as Code, highlighting the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) Tools extension for VS Code, the 'Export Template' feature, and the '_what-if_' operation for validating deployments. It shows an example of defining a storage account and a virtual machine resource within an ARM template.
Feb 2021Project Bicep - Next Generation ARM TemplatesThis post introduces Project Bicep as a next-generation DSL for ARM templates, making it significantly easier to author infrastructure as code. It highlights the VS Code extension for Bicep and provides a link to a getting started tutorial.
Nov 2020ARM Templates Or HashiCorp Terraform - What Should I Use?This post compares ARM Templates and HashiCorp Terraform for infrastructure as code. It explains that ARM Templates are Azure-specific, while Terraform is cloud-agnostic and uses HCL syntax. A key contribution is the `azurerm_resource_group_template_deployment` resource in Terraform, which allows deploying ARM Templates directly through Terraform, mitigating the need for manual translation when migrating from ARM to Terraform. It also mentions the Azure DevOps Provider for Terraform.
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Nov 2020Project Bicep Demo at Ignite 2020 by Mark RussinovichThis post introduces Project Bicep, a new DSL for Azure resource management. It details the goals of Bicep, emphasizing its role as a transparent abstraction of ARM templates, its focus on ease of learning and code reuse, and the importance of tooling for validation. Non-goals include replacing general-purpose languages or providing first-class support for non-Azure tasks. The post notes that Bicep is not yet production-ready but aims for parity with ARM templates by the end of the year, seeking feedback on language syntax and tooling.
Oct 2020What is infrastructure as code?This post introduces Infrastructure as Code (IaC) as a practice for automating deployments and managing infrastructure. It highlights Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates as a declarative JSON-based method for defining Azure infrastructure and introduces HashiCorp Terraform as an open-source tool for provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure across multiple cloud providers. The post provides links to documentation and tutorials for both ARM templates and Terraform on Azure.