Set up CI/CD pipelines

You can set up a Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline for Microsoft Teams apps created with Teams Toolkit. A Teams app CI/CD pipeline consists of three parts:

1. Build the project.

2. Deploy the project to cloud resources.

3. Generate Teams app package.

Note

To create a pipeline for a Teams app, it's required to prepare the necessary cloud resources, such as Azure Web App, Azure Functions, or Azure Static Web App, and configure the app settings.

To build the project, you must compile the source code and create the required deployment artifacts. There are two methods to deploy the artifacts:

• Set up CI/CD pipelines with Teams Toolkit CLI. [Recommended]

• Set up CI/CD pipelines using your own workflow. [Optional]

Set up CI/CD pipelines with Teams Toolkit CLI

Note

Use Teams Toolkit version 5.6.0 or a later.

You can use Teams Toolkit command line interface (CLI) to set up CI/CD pipeline for your Teams app.

Prerequisites

Item	Description
Set up required resources for your Teams app, such as Teams app ID, bot ID, and so on.	• Manually extract the resources from the manifest.json file under the appPackage folder. • Automatically generate to run the Provision command in Teams Toolkit.
Configure Azure resources	• Manually prepare the resources by examining the bicep files under the infra folder. • Automatically prepare the resources using the Provision command in Teams Toolkit.
Ensure that you've a service principal and its access policies on resources are properly configured. Set up a service principal as follows:	• Create service principal using Entra portal. • Create service principal using Azure CLI. • The Teamsapp command-line interface (CLI) supports Azure login with a service principal secret. Create a secret and save the client ID, client secret, and tenant ID of the service principal.

After you've completed the prerequisites, let's set up a pipeline:

• Set up pipeline with GitHub.

• Set up pipeline with Azure DevOps.

Set up pipeline with GitHub

To set up the pipeline with GitHub, follow these steps:

1. Open Visual Studio Code.

2. Create a cd.yml file in your project under .github/workflows folder and add the following code in the file:

   on:
     push:
       branches:
         - main
   jobs:
     build:
       runs-on: ubuntu-latest
       env:
         TEAMSAPP_CLI_VERSION: "3.0.0"
         # Add extra environment variables here so that teamsapp cli can use them.
   
       steps:
         - name: "Checkout GitHub Action"
           uses: actions/checkout@v4
   
         - name: Setup Node 20.x
           uses: actions/setup-node@v1
           with:
             node-version: "20.x"
   
         - name: install cli
           run: |
             npm install @microsoft/teamsapp-cli@${{env.TEAMSAPP_CLI_VERSION}}
   
         - name: Login Azure by service principal
           run: |
             npx teamsapp auth login azure --username ${{vars.AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID}}  \
             --service-principal true \
             --tenant ${{vars.AZURE_TENANT_ID}} \
             --password ${{secrets.AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET }} \
             --interactive false
   
         - name: Deploy to hosting environment
           run: |
             npx teamsapp deploy --ignore-env-file true \
             --interactive false
   
         - name: Package app
           run: |
             npx teamsapp package
   
         - name: upload appPackage
           uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
           with:
             name: artifact
             path: appPackage/build/appPackage.zip
   

   Note

   The default pipeline triggers when push events occur on the main branch. You've the option to modify it to suit your specific requirements.

3. Go to GitHub.

4. Update the following variables and secrets you created during the prerequisites:

   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID, AZURE_TENANT_ID, and AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET

     

     Note

     The AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET variable must be set as secret. Utilize the GitHub environment to use different sets of variables.

   • Go to the teamsapp.yml file. In the deploy stage, the values enclosed in ${{}} are the required variable keys. If you've used the provision command from Teams Toolkit, you can locate the values in the environment files in the .env folder.

     Set the BOT_AZURE_APP_SERVICE_RESOURCE_ID as a repository variable:

     

   • Go to the appPackage/manifest.json file. The values enclosed in ${{}} are the required variable keys. If you've used the provision command from Teams Toolkit, you can locate the values in the environment files in the .env folder.

     Set the TEAMS_APP_ID as a repository variable:

     

5. In the GitHub, navigate to your repository’s Settings and select Secrets and variables > Actions.

   Update the variable keys that you've gathered for the following variables:

   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID
   • AZURE_TENANT_ID
   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET
   • BOT_AZURE_APP_SERVICE_RESOURCE_ID
   • TEAMS_APP_ID

   Add the variables defined in your repo directly into your yml file, excluding the following three variables:

   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID

   • AZURE_TENANT_ID

   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET

     

6. Run the pipeline.

   Push code to the repo to trigger pipeline.

   Note

   You don't need to commit env files under env folder to the repo. The env variables required for executing the CI/CD pipeline are already set in the repo variables.

   After the pipeline executes successfully, the log displays that the code is deployed to Azure and the appPackage is generated in the artifacts.

   

Set up pipeline with Azure DevOps

To set up the pipeline with Azure DevOps, follow these steps:

1. Open Visual Studio Code.

2. Create a cd.yml file in your project and add the following code in the file:

   trigger:
     - main
   
   pool:
     vmImage: ubuntu-latest
   
   variables:
     TEAMSAPP_CLI_VERSION: 3.0.0
   
   steps:
     - task: NodeTool@0
       inputs:
         versionSpec: "20"
         checkLatest: true
   
     - script: |
         npm install @microsoft/teamsapp-cli@$(TEAMSAPP_CLI_VERSION)
       displayName: "Install CLI"
   
     - script: |
         npx teamsapp auth login azure --username $(AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID) --service-principal true --tenant $(AZURE_TENANT_ID) --password $(AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET) --interactive false
       displayName: "Login Azure by service principal"
   
     - script: |
         npx teamsapp deploy --ignore-env-file true --interactive false
       displayName: "Deploy to Azure"
       workingDirectory: $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)
   
     - script: |
         npx teamsapp package
       displayName: "Package app"
       workingDirectory: $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)
   
     - publish: $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/appPackage/build/appPackage.zip
       artifact: artifact
   

   Note

   The default pipeline triggers when push events occur on the main branch. You can modify it to meet your specific requirements.

3. Push the code to the repo.

4. Setup Azure pipeline.

   After you push your code to the repo, navigate to Pipelines and select New pipeline. Select your repo and the existing yml file to configure your pipeline.

5. Update the following variables and secrets you created during the prerequisites:

   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID, AZURE_TENANT_ID, and AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET

   • Go to the teamsapp.yml file. In the deploy stage, the values enclosed in ${{}} are the required variable keys. If you've used the provision command from Teams Toolkit, you can locate the values in the environment files in the .env folder.

     Set the BOT_AZURE_APP_SERVICE_RESOURCE_ID as a repository variable:

     

   • Go to the appPackage/manifest.json file. The values enclosed in ${{}} are the required variable keys. If you've used the provision command from Teams Toolkit, you can locate the values in the environment files in the .env folder.

     Set the TEAMS_APP_ID as a repository variable:

     

   You need to set the following key name variables in the repo:

   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_ID
   • AZURE_TENANT_ID
   • AZURE_SERVICE_PRINCIPAL_CLIENT_SECRET
   • BOT_AZURE_APP_SERVICE_RESOURCE_ID
   • TEAMS_APP_ID

   To set variables in your pipeline, go to your pipeline and select Edit > Variables.

   Note

   For security purposes, select the Keep this value secret checkbox if it's necessary.

   

6. Run the pipeline.

   Push code to the repo to trigger pipeline.

   Note

   There's no need to commit env files under env/ folder to the repo. The env variables required for executing the CI/CD pipeline are already established in the pipeline variables.

   After the pipeline executes successfully, the log displays that the code is deployed to Azure and the appPackage is generated in the artifacts.

   

Set up CI/CD pipelines using your own workflow

If the Teams App CLI doesn't meet your pipeline requirements, you can develop a custom deployment process that suits your needs. This section provides guidance on deploying to Azure with custom methods.

Note

If you already have a complete CI/CD pipeline for deploying to your Azure resource, and your Teams app needs to read environment variables during runtime, configure these environment variables in the settings of your Azure resource. For post-deployment testing, see generate Teams app package.

The teamsapp deploy command executes the actions defined in the deploy stage of the teamsapp.yml file. The deploy stage consists of build and deploy actions. To create a custom deployment method, rewrite these actions based on your specific requirements and preferences.

As an example, a basic bot TypeScript project has the following deploy stage in its teamsapp.yml:

deploy:
  # Run npm command
  - uses: cli/runNpmCommand
    name: install dependencies
    with:
      args: install
  - uses: cli/runNpmCommand
    name: build app
    with:
      args: run build --if-present
  # Deploy your application to Azure App Service using the zip deploy feature.
  # For additional details, refer to this link.
  - uses: azureAppService/zipDeploy
    with:
      # Deploy base folder
      artifactFolder: .
      # Ignore file location, leave blank will ignore nothing
      ignoreFile: .webappignore
      # The resource id of the cloud resource to be deployed to.
      # This key will be generated by arm/deploy action automatically.
      # You can replace it with your existing Azure Resource id
      # or add it to your environment variable file.
      resourceId: ${{BOT_AZURE_APP_SERVICE_RESOURCE_ID}}

These actions perform the following tasks:

• Run npm install and npm build to build the project.
• Deploy code to Azure app service.

You can customize these actions in your CI/CD pipeline. Here's an example that utilizes GitHub's actions:

# build
- name: Setup Node 20.x
  uses: actions/setup-node@v1
  with:
    node-version: '20.x'
- name: 'npm install, build'
  run: |
    npm install
    npm run build --if-present

- name: 'zip artifact for deployment'
  run: |
    zip -r deploy.zip . --include 'node_modules/*' 'lib/*' 'web.config'

# deploy
- name: 'Login via Azure CLI'
  uses: azure/login@v1
  with:
    client-id: ${{ vars.CLIENT_ID }}
    tenant-id: ${{ vars.TENANT_ID }}
    subscription-id: ${{ vars.SUBSCRIPTION_ID }}

- name: 'Run Azure webapp deploy action using azure RBAC'
  uses: azure/webapps-deploy@v2
  with:
    app-name: ${{ vars.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
    package: deploy.zip

The Teams Toolkit supports Teams app projects, written in various programming languages and designed for hosting on different Azure services. The following actions for building and deploying. Use these actions when setting CI/CD deployment pipelines.

Build:

Language	GitHub	Azure Pipeline
JS or TS	actions/setup-node	NodeTool@0
C#	actions/setup-dotnet	DotNetCoreCLI@2

Deploy:

Resource	GitHub	Azure Pipeline
Azure App Service	azure/webapps-deploy	AzureWebApp@1
Azure Functions	Azure/functions-action	AzureFunctionApp@2
Azure Static Web Apps	Azure/static-web-apps-deploy	AzureStaticWebApp@0

Credential needed for login to Azure

When you deploy app code to Azure App Service, Azure Functions, or Azure Container App through CI/CD, you need a service principal for Azure login. You can log in to Azure using a service principal in two ways:

• OpenID Connect (OIDC):

  • For GitHub action, see how to use the Azure login action with OpenID Connect.

  • For Azure pipeline, see how to create an Azure Resource Manager service connection that uses workload identity federation.

• Secret: The TeamsApp CLI supports sign-in using a service principal with a secret. For more information, see how to create a new client secret.

Generate Teams app package

To distribute your Teams app, the appPackage is required. You can automatically create the appPackage.zip using the teamsapp package command in Teamsapp CLI. If you're unable to use Teamsapp CLI, follow these steps to manually create the appPackage:

1. Prepare a appPackage folder.
2. Place the manifest.json file in the appPackage folder. The default manifest.json file in the Teams Toolkit project contains placeholders, denoted by ${{}}. Replace these placeholders with the correct values.
3. Place your app icons in the appPackage folder. To prepare your app icon, see app icons.
4. Zip the files in the appPackage folder.

See also

• Quick Start for GitHub Actions
• Create your first Azure DevOps Pipeline
• Create your first Jenkins Pipeline
• Manage your apps with the Developer Portal for Microsoft Teams