Feature Request: Official Azure DevOps Task for Bicep

[asilverman]

Description

I would like to request the development of an official Azure DevOps task for Bicep, maintained by the Bicep team. While there is currently a community-maintained task available (Bicep Tasks by Piraces), it does not meet the requirements for internal use within our organization due to limitations in its support, updates, and alignment with enterprise compliance standards.

Why This Is Needed

• Enterprise Compliance: Organizations often require tools officially supported and maintained by trusted vendors to meet internal compliance and governance policies.
• Reliability and Updates: A task maintained by the Bicep team would ensure timely updates, compatibility with the latest Bicep features, and long-term support.
• Adoption: An official task would help promote the adoption of Bicep across organizations by providing a first-party solution integrated into Azure DevOps pipelines.

Proposed Solution

Develop and publish an official Azure DevOps task for Bicep that supports:

1. Build and Validate: Compile Bicep files into ARM templates and validate them against Azure resources.
2. Deployment: Deploy Bicep templates directly to Azure, leveraging the latest capabilities of Bicep and ARM.
3. Parameters Management: Support for passing parameters and secrets securely from pipeline variables.
4. Custom Configuration: Enable customization for different use cases, such as different scopes (subscription, resource group, management group).
5. Logging and Feedback: Provide clear and actionable logs for debugging and pipeline reporting.

Benefits

• Aligns with Microsoft's commitment to making Bicep the standard IaC tool for Azure.
• Increases trust and reliability for enterprise customers.
• Simplifies the process of integrating Bicep into Azure DevOps workflows.

Acceptance Criteria

• An official task is developed and published in the Azure DevOps Marketplace.
• Regular updates are provided to align with Bicep releases.
• Comprehensive documentation is made available for installation, configuration, and usage.
• Feedback from early adopters and community contributors is incorporated.

Related Information

• Bicep GitHub Repository
• Current Community Task

[jikuja]

Most of the requested features are already available on AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3

Personally I would like to see AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment or new tasks maintained by Bicep team because updates have been really slow on AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment

[danielhagstromsogeti]

Most of the requested features are already available on AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3

Personally I would like to see AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment or new tasks maintained by Bicep team because updates have been really slow on AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment

One thing I'm sorely missing (I'd be happy to be told where I missed it), is a more fleshed out what-if. Looks to me like AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3 has no such functionality.

I had a look at ARM Deployment Insights, which checks the feature boxes but seems incompatible with our tenant/subscription setup. This plugin is also kinda hard to audit since source-code isn't available, from a relatively unknown author.

[jikuja]

One thing I'm sorely missing (I'd be happy to be told where I missed it), is a more fleshed out what-if. Looks to me like AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3 has no such functionality.

microsoft/azure-pipelines-tasks#16110 This is the exact reason why I would prefer Bicep team maintaining things.

[anthony-c-martin]

We're thinking about this under Azure/bicep-deploy#26