Review continuous deployment options for container apps

  • 5 minutes

Continuous deployment to a container apps instance is implemented as an app versioning process. Azure Container Apps implements container app versioning by creating revisions. A revision is defined as an immutable snapshot of a container app version.

Revision management

Azure Container Apps implements and manages revisions as follows:

  • The first revision is automatically provisioned when you deploy your container app.
  • New revisions are automatically provisioned when you make a revision-scope change to your container app.
  • While revisions are immutable, they're affected by application-scope changes, which apply to all revisions.
  • You can create new revisions by updating a previous revision.
  • You can retain up to 100 revisions, giving you a historical record of your container app updates.
  • You can run multiple revisions concurrently.
  • You can split external HTTP traffic between active revisions.

Diagram showing revisions associated with two container app instances.

Continuous deployment to Azure Container Apps

Azure Container Apps provides support for continuous deployment using either GitHub Actions or Azure Pipelines. The scenarios below describe continuous deployments to a container app connected to container registry. Although the tools are distinct, they implement a similar process.

Continuous deployment using GitHub Actions

Azure Container Apps allows you to use GitHub Actions to publish revisions to your container app. As commits are pushed to your GitHub repository, a workflow is triggered which updates the container image in the container registry. Azure Container Apps creates a new revision based on the updated container image.

Diagram showing a GitHub Actions workflow deploying to Azure Container Apps connected to Container Registry.

The GitHub Actions workflow is triggered by commits to a specific branch in your repository. When creating the workflow, you decide which branch triggers the workflow.

Continuous deployment using Azure Pipelines

Azure Container Apps allows you to use Azure Pipelines to publish revisions to your container app. As commits are pushed to your Azure DevOps repository, a pipeline is triggered which updates the container image in the container registry. Azure Container Apps creates a new revision based on the updated container image.

The pipeline is triggered by commits to a specific branch in your repository. When creating the pipeline, you decide which branch is the trigger.

Azure DevOps and Azure Pipelines are examined in more detail in upcoming units.