Configure your environment for a Blueprint Operator

Important

On July 11, 2026, Blueprints (Preview) will be deprecated. Migrate your existing blueprint definitions and assignments to Template Specs and Deployment Stacks. Blueprint artifacts are to be converted to ARM JSON templates or Bicep files used to define deployment stacks. To learn how to author an artifact as an ARM resource, see:

• Policy
• RBAC
• Deployments

The management of your blueprint definitions and blueprint assignments can be assigned to different teams. It's common for an architect or governance team to be responsible for the lifecycle management of your blueprint definitions while an operations team is responsible for managing assignments of those centrally controlled blueprint definitions.

The Blueprint Operator built-in role is designed specifically for use in this type of scenario. The role allows for operations type teams to manage the assignment of the organizations blueprint definitions, but not the ability to modify them. Doing so requires some configuration in your Azure environment and this article explains the necessary steps.

Grant permission to the Blueprint Operator

The first step is to grant the Blueprint Operator role to the account or security group (recommended) that is going to be assigning blueprints. This action should be done at the highest level in the management group hierarchy that encompasses all of the management groups and subscriptions the operations team should have blueprint assignment access to. It's recommended to follow the principle of least privilege when granting these permissions.

1. (Recommended) Create a security group and add members

2. Assign Azure role of Blueprint Operator to the account or security group

User-assign managed identity

A blueprint definition can use either system-assigned or user-assigned managed identities. However, when using the Blueprint Operator role, the blueprint definition needs to be configured to use a user-assigned managed identity. Additionally, the account or security group being granted the Blueprint Operator role needs to be granted the Managed Identity Operator role on the user-assigned managed identity. Without this permission, blueprint assignments fail because of lack of permissions.

1. Create a user-assigned managed identity for use by an assigned blueprint.

2. Grant the user-assigned managed identity any roles or permissions required by the blueprint definition for the intended scope.

3. Assign Azure role of Managed Identity Operator to the account or security group. Scope the role assignment to the new user-assigned managed identity.

4. As the Blueprint Operator, assign a blueprint that uses the new user-assigned managed identity.

Next steps

• Learn about the blueprint lifecycle.
• Understand how to use static and dynamic parameters.
• Learn to customize the blueprint sequencing order.
• Find out how to make use of blueprint resource locking.
• Resolve issues during the assignment of a blueprint with general troubleshooting.