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Quickstart: Create an Azure key vault and a secret using Bicep

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Azure Key Vault is a cloud service that provides a secure store for secrets, such as keys, passwords, certificates, and other secrets. This quickstart focuses on the process of deploying a Bicep file to create a key vault and a secret.

Bicep is a domain-specific language (DSL) that uses declarative syntax to deploy Azure resources. It provides concise syntax, reliable type safety, and support for code reuse. Bicep offers the best authoring experience for your infrastructure-as-code solutions in Azure.

Prerequisites

  • If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

  • Your Microsoft Entra user object ID is needed by the template to configure permissions. The following procedure gets the object ID (GUID).

    1. Run the following Azure PowerShell or Azure CLI command by select Try it, and then paste the script into the shell pane. To paste the script, right-click the shell, and then select Paste.

      echo "Enter your email address that is used to sign in to Azure:" &&
read upn &&
az ad user show --id $upn --query "objectId" &&
echo "Press [ENTER] to continue ..."

    2. Write down the object ID. You need it in the next section of this quickstart.

Review the Bicep file

The template used in this quickstart is from Azure Quickstart Templates.

@description('Specifies the name of the key vault.')
param keyVaultName string

@description('Specifies the Azure location where the key vault should be created.')
param location string = resourceGroup().location

@description('Specifies whether Azure Virtual Machines are permitted to retrieve certificates stored as secrets from the key vault.')
param enabledForDeployment bool = false

@description('Specifies whether Azure Disk Encryption is permitted to retrieve secrets from the vault and unwrap keys.')
param enabledForDiskEncryption bool = false

@description('Specifies whether Azure Resource Manager is permitted to retrieve secrets from the key vault.')
param enabledForTemplateDeployment bool = false

@description('Specifies the Azure Active Directory tenant ID that should be used for authenticating requests to the key vault. Get it by using Get-AzSubscription cmdlet.')
param tenantId string = subscription().tenantId

@description('Specifies the object ID of a user, service principal or security group in the Azure Active Directory tenant for the vault. The object ID must be unique for the list of access policies. Get it by using Get-AzADUser or Get-AzADServicePrincipal cmdlets.')
param objectId string

@description('Specifies the permissions to keys in the vault. Valid values are: all, encrypt, decrypt, wrapKey, unwrapKey, sign, verify, get, list, create, update, import, delete, backup, restore, recover, and purge.')
param keysPermissions array = [
  'list'
]

@description('Specifies the permissions to secrets in the vault. Valid values are: all, get, list, set, delete, backup, restore, recover, and purge.')
param secretsPermissions array = [
  'list'
]

@description('Specifies whether the key vault is a standard vault or a premium vault.')
@allowed([
  'standard'
  'premium'
])
param skuName string = 'standard'

@description('Specifies the name of the secret that you want to create.')
param secretName string

@description('Specifies the value of the secret that you want to create.')
@secure()
param secretValue string

resource kv 'Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults@2023-07-01' = {
  name: keyVaultName
  location: location
  properties: {
    enabledForDeployment: enabledForDeployment
    enabledForDiskEncryption: enabledForDiskEncryption
    enabledForTemplateDeployment: enabledForTemplateDeployment
    tenantId: tenantId
    enableSoftDelete: true
    softDeleteRetentionInDays: 90
    accessPolicies: [
      {
        objectId: objectId
        tenantId: tenantId
        permissions: {
          keys: keysPermissions
          secrets: secretsPermissions
        }
      }
    ]
    sku: {
      name: skuName
      family: 'A'
    }
    networkAcls: {
      defaultAction: 'Allow'
      bypass: 'AzureServices'
    }
  }
}

resource secret 'Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults/secrets@2023-07-01' = {
  parent: kv
  name: secretName
  properties: {
    value: secretValue
  }
}

output location string = location
output name string = kv.name
output resourceGroupName string = resourceGroup().name
output resourceId string = kv.id

Two Azure resources are defined in the Bicep file:

Deploy the Bicep file

  1. Save the Bicep file as main.bicep to your local computer.

  2. Deploy the Bicep file using either Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell.

    az group create --name exampleRG --location eastus
az deployment group create --resource-group exampleRG --template-file main.bicep --parameters keyVaultName=<vault-name> objectId=<object-id>

    Note

    Replace <vault-name> with the name of the key vault. Replace <object-id> with the object ID of a user, service principal, or security group in the Microsoft Entra tenant for the vault. The object ID must be unique for the list of access policies. Get it by using Get-AzADUser or Get-AzADServicePrincipal cmdlets.

    When the deployment finishes, you should see a message indicating the deployment succeeded.

Review deployed resources

You can either use the Azure portal to check the key vault and the secret, or use the following Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell script to list the secret created.

echo "Enter your key vault name:" &&
read keyVaultName &&
az keyvault secret list --vault-name $keyVaultName &&
echo "Press [ENTER] to continue ..."

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, use the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell to delete the resource group and its resources.

az group delete --name exampleRG

Next steps

In this quickstart, you created a key vault and a secret using Bicep and then validated the deployment. To learn more about Key Vault and Bicep, continue on to the articles below.