Table Storage

Introduction

Azure Table Storage is a NoSQL key-value store designed for large volumes of semi-structured data, useful for lightweight metadata, lookup records, and simple operational datasets. Data is organized into tables, partitions, and entities addressed by PartitionKey and RowKey. It offers schemaless flexibility at a fraction of the cost of traditional SQL, making it easy to adapt as your application evolves. For more information, see What is Azure Table storage?

LocalStack for Azure provides a local environment for building and testing applications that make use of Azure Table Storage. The supported APIs are available on our API Coverage section, which provides information on the extent of Table Storage’s integration with LocalStack.

Getting started

This guide is designed for users new to Table Storage 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 to contain your storage resources:

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

Output

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-table-demo",
  "location": "westeurope",
  "managedBy": null,
  "name": "rg-table-demo",
  "properties": {
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded"
  },
  "tags": null,
  "type": "Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups"
}

Create a storage account

Create a storage account in the resource group:

az storage account create \
  --name sttabledemols \
  --resource-group rg-table-demo \
  --location westeurope \
  --sku Standard_LRS

Output

{
  ...
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-table-demo/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/sttabledemols",
  ...
  "name": "sttabledemols",
  ...
  "placement": null,
  "primaryEndpoints": {
    "blob": "https://sttabledemols.blob.core.azure.localhost.localstack.cloud:4566",
    ...
    "table": "https://sttabledemols.table.core.azure.localhost.localstack.cloud:4566",
    ...
  },
  ....
}

Authentication

There are three ways to authenticate storage table commands against the emulator:

Storage account key

Retrieve the account key and pass it with --account-name and --account-key:

ACCOUNT_KEY=$(az storage account keys list \
  --account-name sttabledemols \
  --resource-group rg-table-demo \
  --query "[0].value" \
  --output tsv)

az storage table list \
  --account-name sttabledemols \
  --account-key "$ACCOUNT_KEY"

Login credentials

Use --auth-mode login to authenticate with the current session credentials:

az storage table list \
  --account-name sttabledemols \
  --auth-mode login

Connection string

Bundle the account name and key into a single value:

CONNECTION_STRING=$(az storage account show-connection-string \
  --name sttabledemols \
  --resource-group rg-table-demo \
  --query connectionString -o tsv)

az storage table list \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

The remaining examples in this guide use connection strings for brevity.

Create and inspect a table

Create a table:

az storage table create \
  --name apptable \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "created": true
}

Verify the table exists:

az storage table exists \
  --name apptable \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "exists": true
}

List tables in the storage account:

az storage table list \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

[
  {
    "name": "apptable"
  }
]

Insert and query entities

Insert an entity into the table:

az storage entity insert \
  --table-name apptable \
  --entity PartitionKey=demo RowKey=1 name=Alice score=100 \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "content": {
    "PartitionKey": "demo",
    "RowKey": "1",
    "name": "Alice",
    "score": 100,
    ...
  },
  "etag": "W/\"datetime'...'\"",
  ...
}

Retrieve the entity by its partition key and row key:

az storage entity show \
  --table-name apptable \
  --partition-key demo \
  --row-key 1 \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "PartitionKey": "demo",
  "RowKey": "1",
  "name": "Alice",
  "score": 100,
  ...
}

Query entities by partition key:

az storage entity query \
  --table-name apptable \
  --filter "PartitionKey eq 'demo'" \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "items": [
    {
      "PartitionKey": "demo",
      "RowKey": "1",
      "name": "Alice",
      "score": 100,
      ...
    }
  ],
  "nextMarker": {}
}

Update, merge, and delete entities

Update the entity with a merge operation:

az storage entity merge \
  --table-name apptable \
  --entity PartitionKey=demo RowKey=1 score=101 \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "etag": "W/\"datetime'...'\"",
  ...
}

Delete the entity and verify the table is empty:

az storage entity delete \
  --table-name apptable \
  --partition-key demo \
  --row-key 1 \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

az storage entity query \
  --table-name apptable \
  --connection-string "$CONNECTION_STRING"

Output

{
  "deleted": null
}
{
  "items": [],
  "nextMarker": {}
}

Features

The Table Storage emulator supports the following features:

• Data plane REST API: Table CRUD, entity operations (insert, query, merge, replace, delete), OData query filters, and batch/transaction requests.
• Control plane REST API: Create and get tables, get and set table service properties via Azure Resource Manager.
• Multiple authentication modes: Storage account key, login credentials, and connection strings.
• Entity operations: Insert, query, show, merge, replace, and delete entities with schemaless, key-value data addressed by PartitionKey and RowKey.
• OData query support: Filter and project entities using OData expressions (e.g., PartitionKey eq 'demo').
• Batch operations: Entity batch (transaction) requests are proxied with correct URL and authorization rewriting.

Limitations

• No data persistence across restarts: Table data is not persisted and is lost when the LocalStack emulator is stopped or restarted.
• Table service properties: set_service_properties is a no-op and get_service_properties returns empty defaults, unlike Azure where CORS, logging, and metrics settings are persisted and applied.
• Storage account keys: Keys are emulator-generated rather than managed by Azure.
• Header validation: Unsupported request headers or parameters are silently accepted (Azurite runs in loose mode) instead of being rejected.
• API version enforcement: The emulator does not validate the x-ms-version header; all API versions are accepted.

Samples

The following sample demonstrates how to use Table Storage with LocalStack for Azure:

• Azure Functions Sample with LocalStack for Azure

API Coverage

Operation ▲	Implemented ▼

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