Bicep — Container Apps Patterns

Container Apps-specific Bicep patterns. For shared patterns (skeleton, naming, tags, security defaults, data modules), see bicep-patterns.md.

Two-Phase Wiring

Container Apps + ACR requires two-phase deployment (circular dependency: CA needs ACR image, ACR needs CA identity for AcrPull):

Phase 1: Deploy Container App with placeholder image (mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-helloworld:latest). ⛔ No registries block, no KV secretRef. The placeholder image is pulled from MCR (public). Use registries: [] and secrets: []. RBAC role assignments (AcrPull, KV Secrets User) ARE created in Phase 1 — they don't affect the placeholder deployment and need 1–2 minutes to propagate before Phase 2.
Phase 2: Build + push app image to ACR, redeploy with real image + registries + KV secretRef entries. RBAC is already propagated from Phase 1.

⛔ Placeholder image listens on port 80, not your app's port. Set targetPort conditionally: var effectivePort = containerImage == 'mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-helloworld:latest' ? 80 : appPort. Mismatched ports cause "Operation expired" (health probe can't reach container).

⛔ containerImage param must exist in BOTH main.bicep AND the container app module. Phase 2 passes --parameters containerImage='...' via CLI — if main.bicep lacks the param, the override is silently ignored and the placeholder persists.

// In main.bicep: thread containerImage to module
param containerImage string = 'mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-helloworld:latest'
module containerApp './modules/containerapp.bicep' = {
  params: { containerImage: containerImage /* ...other params... */ }
}

// In containerapp.bicep:
param containerImage string = 'mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-helloworld:latest'
var isPlaceholder = containerImage == 'mcr.microsoft.com/azuredocs/containerapps-helloworld:latest'

resource containerApp 'Microsoft.App/containerApps@2024-03-01' = {
  identity: { type: 'SystemAssigned' }
  properties: {
    configuration: {
      ingress: {
        external: true
        targetPort: isPlaceholder ? 80 : appPort
        allowInsecure: false  // ⛔ MANDATORY
      }
      registries: isPlaceholder ? [] : [{ server: acr.properties.loginServer, identity: 'system' }]
      secrets: isPlaceholder ? [] : [ /* KV secretRefs here */ ]
    }
    template: {
      containers: [{
        image: containerImage
        env: [{ name: 'PORT', value: string(isPlaceholder ? 80 : appPort) }]
      }]
    }
  }
}

⛔ Do NOT set revisionSuffix. Omit it entirely — ARM auto-generates unique revision names. Hardcoding revisionSuffix: 'v1' causes Phase 2 redeploy to fail with "revision with suffix v1 already exists."

AcrPull Role Assignment

⛔ AcrPull role GUID: 7f951dda-4ed3-4680-a7ca-43fe172d538d. Copy verbatim — wrong GUIDs cause RoleDefinitionDoesNotExist.

resource acrPullRole 'Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments@2022-04-01' = {
  name: guid(acr.id, containerApp.id, '7f951dda-4ed3-4680-a7ca-43fe172d538d')
  scope: acr
  properties: {
    roleDefinitionId: subscriptionResourceId('Microsoft.Authorization/roleDefinitions', '7f951dda-4ed3-4680-a7ca-43fe172d538d')
    principalId: containerApp.identity.principalId
    principalType: 'ServicePrincipal'
  }
}

Log Analytics Workspace Key

⛔ Use resource.listKeys(), NOT reference(). reference() does not expose primarySharedKey.

// ✅ Correct
var laKey = logAnalyticsWorkspace.listKeys().primarySharedKey

// ❌ Wrong
var laKey = reference(logAnalyticsWorkspace.id, '2023-09-01').primarySharedKey

Log Analytics customerId vs resource ID

⛔ Output BOTH id and customerId from the log-analytics module. Container Apps Environment needs the GUID customerId. App Insights needs the ARM resource ID. Do NOT use split(workspaceId, '/')[8] — that extracts the workspace name, not the GUID.

// log-analytics.bicep outputs:
output id string = logAnalyticsWorkspace.id                            // ARM resource ID
output customerId string = logAnalyticsWorkspace.properties.customerId // GUID
output sharedKey string = logAnalyticsWorkspace.listKeys().primarySharedKey

// container-app-environment.bicep:
param workspaceCustomerId string  // GUID, NOT resource ID
// ⛔ MUST nest under appLogsConfiguration.destination='log-analytics' — a bare top-level logAnalyticsConfiguration fails deploy (ManagedEnvironmentInvalidSchema). This nesting is the ONLY valid location at EVERY API version (the flat shape was never valid — NOT version drift, so do not chase API-version pins). This is the CA's only log path (no diagnostic-settings module).
properties: {
  appLogsConfiguration: {
    destination: 'log-analytics'
    logAnalyticsConfiguration: {
      customerId: workspaceCustomerId
      sharedKey: workspaceSharedKey
    }
  }
}
// ❌ WRONG: customerId: split(workspaceId, '/')[8]

Ingress & Port Mapping

⛔ Container resource limits: Use decimal format for memory: '0.5Gi', '1Gi', '2Gi' — NOT Kubernetes-style '512Mi'. CPU must be type string: '0.25', '0.5', '1'. Valid combos: 0.25/0.5Gi, 0.5/1Gi, 0.75/1.5Gi, 1/2Gi, 1.25/2.5Gi, 1.5/3Gi, 1.75/3.5Gi, 2/4Gi.

⛔ ACR module: retentionPolicy is Premium-only. For Basic/Standard ACR, omit retentionPolicy entirely — ARM rejects it.

Key Vault Secret References

⛔ Container Apps does NOT support @Microsoft.KeyVault(SecretUri=...) syntax. That is App Service-only. Container Apps uses secretRef with managed identity.

Correct pattern — Container Apps secrets from Key Vault:

❌ WRONG — environment().suffixes.keyvaultDns produces double-dot URL: keyVaultUrl: 'https://${kvName}${environment().suffixes.keyvaultDns}/secrets/...' That function returns .vault.azure.net (WITH leading dot) → kv-name..vault.azure.net → ContainerAppSecretKeyVaultUrlInvalid. ✅ Use keyVault.name + .vault.azure.net (hardcoded domain) or keyVaultModule.outputs.vaultUri.

⛔ Every secrets[].keyVaultUrl in a Container App MUST have a matching Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults/secrets child resource in the KV module. If the CA references sshpass via secretRef, the KV module must create that secret. Missing secrets → SecretNotFound at Phase 2 deploy.

resource containerApp 'Microsoft.App/containerApps@2024-03-01' = {
  identity: {
    type: 'SystemAssigned'
  }
  properties: {
    configuration: {
      secrets: [
        {
          name: 'db-connection-string'
          // ⛔ Do NOT replace vault.azure.net with environment().suffixes.keyvaultDns — it adds a leading dot → double-dot URL
          #disable-next-line no-hardcoded-env-urls
          keyVaultUrl: 'https://${keyVault.name}.vault.azure.net/secrets/db-connection-string'
          identity: 'system'  // Uses the CA's system-assigned managed identity
        }
      ]
    }
    template: {
      containers: [{
        env: [
          {
            name: 'DATABASE_URL'
            secretRef: 'db-connection-string'  // References the secret defined above
          }
        ]
      }]
    }
  }
}

⛔ Never use conditional logic (??, ternary, empty(), union()) to mix plain and secret env vars in a single Bicep loop or array. ARM evaluates ALL property paths in conditional expressions — envVar.secretRef errors on items that don't have that property, producing InvalidTemplate. Instead, define plain and secret env vars as separate arrays and concatenate:
env: concat(
  [
    { name: 'PORT', value: '8000' }
    { name: 'NODE_ENV', value: 'production' }
  ],
  [
    { name: 'DATABASE_URL', secretRef: 'db-connection-string' }
    { name: 'REDIS_URL', secretRef: 'redis-connection-string' }
  ]
)

⛔ KV Secrets User role scoped to Key Vault resource — NOT resourceGroup(). Scoping to resourceGroup() causes 403.

resource kvRole 'Microsoft.Authorization/roleAssignments@2022-04-01' = {
  scope: keyVault                    // ⛔ scope to KV resource, not RG
  properties: {
    roleDefinitionId: subscriptionResourceId('Microsoft.Authorization/roleDefinitions', '4633458b-17de-408a-b874-0445c86b69e6') // Key Vault Secrets User
    principalId: containerApp.identity.principalId  // ⛔ object ID, NOT clientId
    principalType: 'ServicePrincipal'
  }
}

❌ WRONG: principalId: .clientId (not the object ID) or identity: containerApp.id in secrets[] (use 'system' for system-assigned MI).

For KV secret seeding and dependency chain, see env-var-secrets.md.

Multi-Container Internal DNS

Container Apps in the same environment communicate via internal DNS: http://{container-app-name}. Set via env vars:

env: [
  { name: 'API_URL', value: 'http://${apiContainerApp.name}' }
  { name: 'WORKER_URL', value: 'http://${workerContainerApp.name}' }
]

No ingress needed for internal-only services — set ingress.external: false or omit ingress entirely.

Networking

⛔ Subnets MUST be defined inline in VNet properties.subnets[], NOT as separate Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/subnets child resources. Separate child resources cause InUseSubnetCannotBeDeleted on redeploy when NICs are attached.

/azure-app-onboard

scaffoldreferencesbicep-container-apps.md