Azure Bicep Preview: ARM Templates Made Simple

ARM templates have always been powerful but verbose. Azure Bicep is a new DSL that compiles to ARM templates. It’s like TypeScript for ARM. Here’s an early look.

What is Bicep?

Bicep is a domain-specific language that transpiles to ARM JSON. Write cleaner code, get the same deployment artifacts.

ARM vs Bicep

// Bicep - Clean and readable
param location string = resourceGroup().location
param storageAccountName string

resource storageAccount 'Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts@2021-02-01' = {
  name: storageAccountName
  location: location
  kind: 'StorageV2'
  sku: {
    name: 'Standard_LRS'
  }
}

output storageAccountId string = storageAccount.id

Compare to the equivalent ARM JSON – about 50% less code.

Key Benefits

• Type safety: IntelliSense and validation
• Modularity: Import modules easily
• No state: Compiles to ARM, uses Azure’s state
• Transparency: View generated ARM anytime

References

• Bicep Documentation