What is the Azure Developer CLI?

Azure Developer CLI (azd) is an open-source tool that accelerates the time it takes for you to get your application from local development environment to Azure. azd provides best practice, developer-friendly commands that map to key stages in your workflow, whether you're working in the terminal, your editor or integrated development environment (IDE), or CI/CD (continuous integration/continuous deployment).

You can use azd with extensible blueprint templates that include everything you need to get an application up and running on Azure. These templates include reusable infrastructure as code assets and proof-of-concept application code that can be replaced with your own app code. You can also create your own template or find one to build upon.

Typical azd workflow

Once you've installed Azure Developer CLI, you can get your app running on Azure in just a few steps.

  1. Select an Azure Developer CLI template.
  2. Initialize the project with the template by running azd init
  3. Package, provision and deploy the app by running azd up.
  4. Continue iterating on your application code and deploying changes as needed by running azd deploy
  5. Update Azure resources by modifying the template's Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and then running azd provision (optional)

Introductory video

Check out our Azure Developer CLI playlist!

Next steps