Quickstart: Create an Azure App Configuration store

Azure App Configuration is an Azure service designed to help you centrally manage your app settings and feature flags. In this quickstart, learn how to create an App Configuration store and add a few key-values and feature flags.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create one for free.

Create an App Configuration store

Portal

1. On the Azure portal's homepage, enter App Configuration in the search box at the top and select App Configuration from the search results.

   

2. Select Create or Create app configuration.

   

3. In the Basics tab, enter the following settings:

   Setting	Suggested value	Description
   Subscription	Your subscription	Select the Azure subscription that you want to use to create an App Configuration store. If your account has only one subscription, it's automatically selected and the Subscription list isn't displayed.
   Resource group	AppConfigTestResources	Select or create a resource group for your App Configuration store resource. A resource group can be used to organize and manage multiple resources at the same time, such as deleting multiple resources in a single operation by deleting their resource group. For more information, see Manage Azure resource groups by using the Azure portal.
   Location	Central US	Use Location to specify the geographic location in which your app configuration store is hosted. For the best performance, create the resource in the same region as other components of your application.
   Resource name	Globally unique name	Enter a unique resource name to use for the App Configuration store resource. The name must be a string between 5 and 50 characters and contain only numbers, letters, and the - character. The name can't start or end with the - character.
   Pricing tier	Free	Selecting Free. If you select the standard tier, you can also get access to geo-replication and soft-delete features. For more information, see the App Configuration pricing page.

   

4. Select Review + create to validate your settings.

   

5. Select Create. The deployment might take a few minutes.

6. After the deployment finishes, go to the App Configuration resource. Select Settings > Access keys. Make a note of the primary read-only key connection string. You'll use this connection string later to configure your application to communicate with the App Configuration store that you created.

Azure CLI

To create an App Configuration store, start by creating a resource group for your new service.

Create a resource group

Create a resource group named AppConfigTestResources in the Central US location with the az group create command:

az group create --name AppConfigTestResources --location centralus

Create an App Configuration store

Create a new store with the az group create command and replace the placeholder <name> with a unique resource name for your App Configuration store.

az appconfig create --location centralus --name <name> --resource-group AppConfigTestResources

If you're following another tutorial to use the App Configuration store, you can go back to your original tutorial as the store should be ready. To continue with this tutorial, follow the steps below.

Create a key-value

Portal

1. Select Operations > Configuration explorer > Create > Key-value to add a key-value to a store. For example:

   Key	Value
   TestApp:Settings:TextAlign	center

2. Leave Label and Content Type with their default values, then select Apply. For more information about labels and content types, go to Keys and values.

   

Azure CLI

Add a key-value to the App Configuration store using the az appconfig kv set command. Replace the placeholder <name> with the name of the App Configuration store:

az appconfig kv set --name <name> --key TestApp:Settings:TextAlign --value center

Create a feature flag

Portal

1. Select Operations > Feature Manager > Create and fill out the form with the following parameters:

   Setting	Suggested value	Description
   Enable feature flag	Box is checked.	Check this box to make the new feature flag active as soon as the flag has been created.
   Feature flag name	featureA	The feature flag name is the unique ID of the flag, and the name that should be used when referencing the flag in code.

2. Leave all other fields with their default values and select Apply.

   

Azure CLI

Add a feature flag to the App Configuration store using the az appconfig feature set command. Replace the placeholder <name> with the name of the App Configuration store:

az appconfig feature set --name <name> --feature featureA

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, delete the resource group. Deleting a resource group also deletes the resources in it.

Warning

Deleting a resource group is irreversible.

Portal

1. In the Azure portal, search for and select Resource groups.

2. Select your resource group, for instance AppConfigTestResources, and then select Delete resource group.

3. Type the resource group name to verify, and then select Delete.

Azure CLI

Run the az group delete command. Replace the placeholder <name> with the name of the App Configuration store:

az group delete --name <name>

Next steps

Advance to the next article to learn how to create an ASP.NET Core app with Azure App Configuration to centralize storage and management of its application settings.

Quickstart ASP.NET Core