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Known issues for template specs

This article lists known limitations and known issues for Azure Resource Manager template specs, along with recommended workarounds when available.

Known limitations

  • Maximum size. The size of a template spec is limited to approximately 2 MB. If a template spec exceeds the limit, you get the TemplateSpecTooLarge error code. For large template specs with many artifacts, split it into multiple template specs and reference them modularly through template links.
  • No Bicep import from the portal. You can't import a Bicep file from the Azure portal to create a template spec resource at this time. Use Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell to create template specs from Bicep files. The Bicep files are transpiled into JSON ARM templates before they're stored.
  • Embedded non-template artifacts aren't packaged. Bicep can embed some project artifacts such as PowerShell scripts, CLI scripts, and other binaries by using the loadTextContent and loadFileAsBase64 functions. Template specs can't package these artifacts.

Known issues

  • .bicepparam deployment isn't supported in Azure PowerShell. You can't use Azure PowerShell to deploy a template spec with a .bicepparam file at this time. Use Azure CLI, or supply parameters with a JSON parameters file.

TemplateSpecTooLarge error

When a template spec exceeds the size limit, you receive an error similar to the following error message:

The size of the template spec content exceeds the maximum limit.

To work around the limit, split the template into multiple template specs and reference the linked templates modularly through template links. For more information, see Create a linked template.

Next steps