Resource Manager

Introduction

Azure Resource Manager (ARM) is the unified deployment and management layer for Azure resources, providing a consistent control-plane API for resource organization and lifecycle management. It enables idempotent, declarative infrastructure as code (IaC) through JSON-based ARM templates and Bicep modules, allowing for automated resource group orchestration and provider registrations.

For more information, see:

LocalStack for Azure enables seamless interaction with the emulator’s management REST API via Azure Resource Manager. It also provides native support for Bicep and ARM templates, allowing for standardized Infrastructure as Code (IaC) deployments within your local environment. The supported APIs are available on our API Coverage section, which provides information on the extent of Resource Manager’s integration with LocalStack.

Getting started

This guide is designed for users new to Resource Manager and assumes basic knowledge of the Azure CLI and our azlocal wrapper script.

Launch LocalStack using your preferred method. For more information, see Introduction to LocalStack for Azure. Once the container is running, enable Azure CLI interception by running:

azlocal start-interception

This command points the az CLI away from the public Azure management REST API and toward the LocalStack for Azure emulator API. To revert this configuration, run:

azlocal stop-interception

This reconfigures the az CLI to send commands to the official Azure management REST API.

Create a resource group

Create a resource group:

az group create \
  --name rg-resources-demo \
  --location westeurope

{
  "name": "rg-resources-demo",
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-resources-demo",
  "location": "westeurope",
  "properties": {
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded"
  },
  "..."
}

Get and list resource groups

Get the resource group details:

az group show --name rg-resources-demo

{
  "name": "rg-resources-demo",
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-resources-demo",
  "location": "westeurope",
  "properties": {
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded"
  },
  "..."
}

List matching resource groups:

az group list --query "[?name=='rg-resources-demo']"

[
  {
    "name": "rg-resources-demo",
    "location": "westeurope",
    "..."
  }
]

Query resource providers

Get a specific provider:

az provider show --namespace Microsoft.Resources

{
  "namespace": "Microsoft.Resources",
  "registrationState": "Registered",
  "registrationPolicy": "RegistrationFree",
  "resourceTypes": [
    {
      "resourceType": "resourceGroups",
      "apiVersions": ["2023-07-01", "..."],
      "..."
    }
    ...
  ],
  "..."
}

List provider registration state:

az provider list --query "[?namespace=='Microsoft.Resources'].{namespace:namespace,registrationState:registrationState}"

[
  {
    "namespace": "Microsoft.Resources",
    "registrationState": "Registered"
  }
]

Deploy a Bicep template

Create a Bicep file named main.bicep that provisions a storage account inside the resource group:

param location string = resourceGroup().location
param storageAccountName string = 'stbicep${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'

resource storageAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2023-05-01' = {
  name: storageAccountName
  location: location
  sku: {
    name: 'Standard_LRS'
  }
  kind: 'StorageV2'
}

output storageAccountId string = storageAccount.id

Deploy the template into the resource group:

az deployment group create \
  --resource-group rg-resources-demo \
  --template-file main.bicep

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-resources-demo/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deployments/main",
  "name": "main",
  "properties": {
    "correlationId": "...",
    "mode": "Incremental",
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
    "outputResources": [
      {
        ...
        "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-resources-demo/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/..."
      }
    ],
    "outputs": {
      "storageAccountId": {
        "type": "String",
        "value": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-resources-demo/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/..."
      }
    },
    "..."
  },
  "type": "Microsoft.Resources/deployments",
  "..."
}

Verify the deployment status:

az deployment group show \
  --resource-group rg-resources-demo \
  --name main

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-resources-demo/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deployments/main",
  "name": "main",
  "properties": {
    "correlationId": "...",
    "mode": "Incremental",
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
    ...
  },
  "type": "Microsoft.Resources/deployments",
  "..."
}

Features

The Resource Manager emulator supports the following features:

Resource group lifecycle: Create, update, get, list, delete, and check existence of resource groups. Deletion cascades to all contained resources.
Resource listing and filtering: List resources across a subscription or within a resource group, with support for $filter and $expand query parameters.
Resource move: Move top-level resources between resource groups with validation of source and destination groups, resource locks, and resource hierarchy.
ARM template deployments: Create or update deployments at the resource group scope and at the subscription scope. Templates are parsed and resources are provisioned in dependency order.
Bicep support: Bicep files compiled by the Azure CLI are accepted as ARM JSON templates. The emulator handles Bicep 2.0 symbolic names, languageVersion, and definitions sections.
Nested deployments: Inner-scoped and outer-scoped nested templates (Microsoft.Resources/deployments) are supported, including parameter passing between scopes.
ARM template functions: Over 60 built-in functions are evaluated locally, including resourceId, reference, listKeys, concat, format, uniqueString, resourceGroup, subscription, copyIndex, if, union, createObject, and others.
Template validation: Validate ARM templates at the resource group scope and subscription scope without creating resources.
Copy loops and conditional resources: The copy element and condition property are supported, enabling iterative resource creation and conditional deployment logic.
Deployment operations: List deployment operations at the resource group scope and at the subscription scope, including provisioning state and target resource details.
Deployment outputs: Template outputs are evaluated after deployment completes, with full ARM expression resolution.
Subscription management: List and get subscriptions, and list available Azure locations with metadata.
Tenant listing: List tenant identifiers associated with the emulator environment.
Provider registry: List, get, register, and unregister resource providers, including resource type details, API versions, and zone mappings.
Resource group locks: Lock and unlock resource groups to prevent accidental deletion or modification of contained resources.

Limitations

Single subscription: The emulator exposes a single subscription. Multiple subscriptions are not supported.
Template validation is a no-op: The deployments validate and deployments validate at subscription scope endpoints return a success response without performing syntactic or semantic validation.
No management group or tenant-scoped deployments: Deployments are supported only at the resource group and subscription scopes.
No what-if analysis: The az deployment group what-if operation is not implemented.
ARM template function coverage: While over 60 functions are supported, some less common functions or advanced overloads may not be fully implemented.
No resource tags on generic resource listings: Tags and extended properties may not be fully populated when listing resources across a subscription.
No RBAC enforcement on resource operations: All API calls succeed without role-based access control checks.
Deployment concurrency: Resources within a single deployment are created sequentially with dependency resolution, not in full parallel as in Azure.
No deployment cancellation: Running deployments cannot be cancelled.
No deployment deletion: Deployments are retained in memory and cannot be explicitly deleted via the API.

Samples

The following samples demonstrate how to use Azure Resource Manager and Bicep with LocalStack for Azure:

API Coverage

Operation ▲	Implemented ▼

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