Azure Functions: How do I control development/production/staging app settings?

Question

I've just started experimenting with Azure functions and I'm trying to understand how to control the app settings depending on environment.

In dotnet core you could have appsettings.json, appsettings.development.json etc. And as you moved between different environments the config would change.

However from looking at Azure function documentation all I can find is that you can set up config in the azure portal but I can't see anything about setting up config in the solution?

So what is the best way to manage build environment?

Thanks in advance :-)

Jan_V Jan_V · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-15T18:04:52

The best way, in my opinion, is using a proper build and release system, like VSTS.

What I've done in one of my solutions is creating an ARM template of my Function App and deploy this using a release pipeline with VSTS RM.

This way you can just add a value to the template.json, like the one from below.

"appSettings": [
    // other entries
    {
        "name": "MyValue",
        "value": "[parameters('myValue')]"
    }

You will need another file, called parameters.json which will hold the values. This file looks like so (at the moment).

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentParameters.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "name": {},
        "storageName": {},
        "location": {},
        "subscriptionId": {}
    }
}

Back in VSTS you can just change/override the values of these parameters in the portal.

By using such a workflow you will get a professional CI/CD implementation where no one has to bother themselves with the actual secrets. They are only known to the system administrators.

Azure Functions: How do I control development/production/staging app settings?

1 Answers