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Quickstart: Build and deploy your container app from a repository in Azure Container Apps

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This article demonstrates how to build and deploy a microservice to Azure Container Apps from a source repository using the programming language of your choice.

In this quickstart, you create a backend web API service that returns a static collection of music albums. After completing this quickstart, you can continue to Tutorial: Communication between microservices in Azure Container Apps to learn how to deploy a front end application that calls the API.

Note

You can also build and deploy this sample application using the az containerapp up command. For more information, see Tutorial: Build and deploy your app to Azure Container Apps.

The following screenshot shows the output from the album API service you deploy.

Screenshot of response from albums API endpoint.

Prerequisites

To complete this project, you need the following items:

Requirement Instructions
Azure account If you don't have one, create an account for free. You need the Contributor or Owner permission on the Azure subscription to proceed.

Refer to Assign Azure roles using the Azure portal for details.
GitHub Account Get one for free.
git Install git
Azure CLI Install the Azure CLI.
Requirement Instructions
Azure account If you don't have one, create an account for free. You need the Contributor or Owner permission on the Azure subscription to proceed.

Refer to Assign Azure roles using the Azure portal for details.
GitHub Account Get one for free.
git Install git
Azure CLI Install the Azure CLI.

Setup

To sign in to Azure from the CLI, run the following command and follow the prompts to complete the authentication process.

az login

Ensure you're running the latest version of the CLI via the upgrade command.

az upgrade

Next, install or update the Azure Container Apps extension for the CLI.

az extension add --name containerapp --upgrade

Register the Microsoft.App and Microsoft.OperationalInsights namespaces if you haven't already registered them in your Azure subscription.

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.App

az provider register --namespace Microsoft.OperationalInsights

Now that your Azure CLI setup is complete, you can define the environment variables that are used throughout this article.

Define the following variables in your bash shell.

RESOURCE_GROUP="album-containerapps"
LOCATION="canadacentral"
ENVIRONMENT="env-album-containerapps"
API_NAME="album-api"
FRONTEND_NAME="album-ui"
GITHUB_USERNAME="<YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>"

Before you run this command, make sure to replace <YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME> with your GitHub username.

Next, define a container registry name unique to you.

ACR_NAME="acaalbums"$GITHUB_USERNAME

Define the following variables in your bash shell.

RESOURCE_GROUP="album-containerapps"
LOCATION="canadacentral"
ENVIRONMENT="env-album-containerapps"
API_NAME="album-api"

Prepare the GitHub repository

In a browser window, go to the GitHub repository for your preferred language and fork the repository.

Select the Fork button at the top of the album API repo to fork the repo to your account.

Now you can clone your fork of the sample repository.

Use the following git command to clone your forked repo into the code-to-cloud folder:

git clone https://github.com/$GITHUB_USERNAME/containerapps-albumapi-csharp.git code-to-cloud

Build and deploy the container app

Build and deploy your first container app from your local git repository with the containerapp up command. This command will:

  • Create the resource group
  • Create an Azure Container Registry
  • Build the container image and push it to the registry
  • Create the Container Apps environment with a Log Analytics workspace
  • Create and deploy the container app using a public container image

The up command uses the Docker file in the root of the repository to build the container image. The target port is defined by the EXPOSE instruction in the Docker file. A Docker file isn't required to build a container app.

az containerapp up \
  --name $API_NAME \
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP \
  --location $LOCATION \
  --environment $ENVIRONMENT \
  --source code-to-cloud/src

Build and deploy the container app

Build and deploy your first container app from your forked GitHub repository with the containerapp up command. This command will:

  • Create the resource group
  • Create an Azure Container Registry
  • Build the container image and push it to the registry
  • Create the Container Apps environment with a Log Analytics workspace
  • Create and deploy the container app using a public container image
  • Create a GitHub Action workflow to build and deploy the container app

The up command uses the Docker file in the root of the repository to build the container image. The target port is defined by the EXPOSE instruction in the Docker file. A Docker file isn't required to build a container app.

Replace the <YOUR_GITHUB_REPOSITORY_NAME> with your GitHub repository name in the form of https://github.com/<owner>/<repository-name> or <owner>/<repository-name>.

az containerapp up \
  --name $API_NAME \
  --resource-group $RESOURCE_GROUP \
  --location $LOCATION \
  --environment $ENVIRONMENT \
  --context-path ./src \
  --repo <YOUR_GITHUB_REPOSITORY_NAME>

Using the URL and the user code displayed in the terminal, go to the GitHub device activation page in a browser and enter the user code to the page. Follow the prompts to authorize the Azure CLI to access your GitHub repository.

The up command creates a GitHub Action workflow in your repository .github/workflows folder. The workflow is triggered to build and deploy your container app when you push changes to the repository.

Verify deployment

Copy the FQDN to a web browser. From your web browser, go to the /albums endpoint of the FQDN.

Screenshot of response from albums API endpoint.

Clean up resources

If you're not going to continue on to the Deploy a frontend tutorial, you can remove the Azure resources created during this quickstart with the following command.

Caution

The following command deletes the specified resource group and all resources contained within it. If the group contains resources outside the scope of this quickstart, they are also deleted.

az group delete --name $RESOURCE_GROUP

Tip

Having issues? Let us know on GitHub by opening an issue in the Azure Container Apps repo.

Next steps

Tutorial: Communication between microservices