What this book covers
Chapter 1, An Introduction to Azure Bicep, describes what Azure Bicep is, why it was created, and some of the goals it's trying to achieve.
Chapter 2, Installing Azure Bicep, covers how to install Azure Bicep on different operating systems along with the Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell.
Chapter 3, Authoring Experience, is all about the developer experience when writing Bicep templates in their local development, especially when using Visual Studio Code and its Bicep extension.
Chapter 4, Compiling and Decompiling Bicep Files, covers how to compile Bicep templates to ARM templates before deployment, or if there is an existing ARM template, how to decompile it to a Bicep file.
Chapter 5, Defining Resources, explains how to define resources in a Bicep template, their properties, and dependencies, and some of the language specification that helps you to understand why Bicep is designed the way it is.
Chapter 6, Using Parameters, Variables, and Template Functions, takes you one step further to make your template customizable, remove duplicate expressions using variables, and use the template functions to create better, more reusable templates.
Chapter 7, Understanding Expressions, Symbolic Names, Conditions, and Loops, expands on the previous chapter to help you write template expressions, use logical flows and conditions, and use loops to create a resource multiple times without repeating the syntax.
Chapter 8, Defining Modules and Utilizing Outputs, introduces modules and helps you create modular, reusable templates that not only can be consumed by your own templates but also other teams within your organization. It also reviews template outputs and how to send information about the deployment outside of your templates.
Chapter 9, Deploying a Local Template, starts the process of validating and deploying your templates. Before you start using your templates in your CI/CD pipelines, you need to know how to test and deploy them locally, and that is what you will learn here.
Chapter 10, Deploying Bicep Using Azure DevOps, helps you set up an Azure pipeline to deploy your Azure resources from Azure Repos. It covers not only the creation of the pipeline but also how to add the necessary steps to validate and deploy a Bicep template.
Chapter 11, Deploying Bicep Templates Using GitHub Actions, helps you validate and deploy your Bicep templates from GitHub using a GitHub Actions workflow.
Chapter 12, Exploring Best Practices for Future Maintenance, complements your learning by introducing you to some best practices that will take your Bicep template creation to the next level.
