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Continuous delivery by using GitHub Action

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  • 8 minutes to read

Use GitHub Actions to define a workflow to automatically build and deploy code to your function app in Azure Functions.

In GitHub Actions, a workflow is an automated process that you define in your GitHub repository. This process tells GitHub how to build and deploy your function app project on GitHub.

A workflow is defined by a YAML (.yml) file in the /.github/workflows/ path in your repository. This definition contains the various steps and parameters that make up the workflow.

For an Azure Functions workflow, the file has three sections:

Section Tasks
Authentication Download a publish profile.
Create a GitHub secret.
Build Set up the environment.
Build the function app.
Deploy Deploy the function app.

Prerequisites

Generate deployment credentials

The recommended way to authenticate with Azure Functions for GitHub Actions is by using a publish profile. You can also authenticate with a service principal. To learn more, see this GitHub Actions repository.

After saving your publish profile credential as a GitHub secret, you'll use this secret within your workflow to authenticate with Azure.

Download your publish profile

To download the publishing profile of your function app:

  1. Select the function app's Overview page, and then select Get publish profile.

    Download publish profile

  2. Save and copy the contents of the file.

Add the GitHub secret

  1. In GitHub, browse to your repository, select Settings > Secrets > Add a new secret.

    Add Secret

  2. Add a new secret using AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE for Name, the content of the publishing profile file for Value, and then select Add secret.

GitHub can now authenticate to your function app in Azure.

Create the environment

Setting up the environment is done using a language-specific publish setup action.

.NET (including ASP.NET) uses the actions/setup-dotnet action.
The following example shows the part of the workflow that sets up the environment:

    - name: Setup DotNet 2.2.402 Environment
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: 2.2.402

Build the function app

This depends on the language and for languages supported by Azure Functions, this section should be the standard build steps of each language.

The following example shows the part of the workflow that builds the function app, which is language-specific:

    env:
      AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.' # set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root

    - name: 'Resolve Project Dependencies Using Dotnet'
      shell: bash
      run: |
        pushd './${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}'
        dotnet build --configuration Release --output ./output
        popd

Deploy the function app

Use the Azure/functions-action action to deploy your code to a function app. This action has three parameters:

Parameter Explanation
app-name (Mandatory) The name of your function app.
slot-name (Optional) The name of the deployment slot you want to deploy to. The slot must already be defined in your function app.
publish-profile (Optional) The name of the GitHub secret for your publish profile.

The following example uses version 1 of the functions-action and a publish profile for authentication

Set up a .NET Linux workflow that uses a publish profile.

name: Deploy DotNet project to function app with a Linux environment

on:
  [push]

env:
  AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_NAME: your-app-name  # set this to your application's name
  AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.'    # set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root
  DOTNET_VERSION: '2.2.402'              # set this to the dotnet version to use

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - name: 'Checkout GitHub Action'
      uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Setup DotNet ${{ env.DOTNET_VERSION }} Environment
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.DOTNET_VERSION }}

    - name: 'Resolve Project Dependencies Using Dotnet'
      shell: bash
      run: |
        pushd './${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}'
        dotnet build --configuration Release --output ./output
        popd
    - name: 'Run Azure Functions Action'
      uses: Azure/functions-action@v1
      id: fa
      with:
        app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_NAME }}
        package: '${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}/output'
        publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}

Set up a .NET Windows workflow that uses a publish profile.

name: Deploy DotNet project to function app with a Windows environment

on:
  [push]

env:
  AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_NAME: your-app-name  # set this to your application's name
  AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.'    # set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root
  DOTNET_VERSION: '2.2.402'              # set this to the dotnet version to use

jobs:
  build-and-deploy:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
    - name: 'Checkout GitHub Action'
      uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Setup DotNet ${{ env.DOTNET_VERSION }} Environment
      uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v1
      with:
        dotnet-version: ${{ env.DOTNET_VERSION }}

    - name: 'Resolve Project Dependencies Using Dotnet'
      shell: pwsh
      run: |
        pushd './${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}'
        dotnet build --configuration Release --output ./output
        popd
    - name: 'Run Azure Functions Action'
      uses: Azure/functions-action@v1
      id: fa
      with:
        app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_NAME }}
        package: '${{ env.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}/output'
        publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_FUNCTIONAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}

Next steps

Learn more about Azure and GitHub integration