The Microsoft Azure Resource Manager (ARM) API supports nested JSON templates, for declarative provisioning of cloud resources. However, the documentation does not [currently] state how many layers of nesting are supported. Is it just one layer of nesting, or can they be nested further? If so, what is the depth limit?
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/resource-group-linked-templates/
Right, there is no explicit limit. If you inspect the json schema, you will not find any max restriction defined: deployment template schema. However, Azure deployment template is limited in total size and must no exceed 1MB:
You must limit the size your template to 1 MB, and each parameter file to 64 KB. The 1 MB limit applies to the final state of the template after it has been expanded with iterative resource definitions, and values for variables and parameters.
Do not be confused with resources element though, which is constrained to the 5 levels of nesting:
The resources property allows you to specify child resources that are related to the resource being defined. Child resources can only be defined 5 levels deep. It is important to note that an implicit dependency is not created between a child resource and the parent resource. If you need the child resource to be deployed after the parent resource, you must explicitly state that dependency with the dependsOn property.
Finally, I can't imagine any situation where you would have more than 10 nested templates. Just think about maintainability and how challenging would it be to debug/troubleshoot failing deployment
