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Quickstart: Deploy an Aspire app to Azure App Service

In this quickstart, you learn how to create and deploy your first Aspire app to Azure App Service. Azure App Service provides a fully managed platform for hosting web apps with built-in infrastructure maintenance, security patching, and scaling.

You can complete this entire quickstart in your browser using GitHub Codespaces, which provides a pre-configured development environment with .NET 10 and Azure Developer CLI already installed. By the end, you have a running Aspire app deployed to Azure App Service.

Note

While this quickstart focuses on .NET projects, Aspire also supports Python applications starting from Aspire 1.3. Python Aspire apps can also be deployed to Azure App Service using the same integration.

Prerequisites

Create an Aspire starter app in a GitHub codespace

  1. Navigate to github.com/codespaces.

  2. For the .NET template, select Use this template.

    Your browser opens a new codespace with Visual Studio Code running in the browser. The environment includes .NET 10 and Azure Developer CLI pre-installed.

  3. In the codespace terminal, install the Aspire CLI globally:

    dotnet tool install -g Aspire.Cli

  4. In the terminal, create a new Aspire app. When prompted, accept the defaults.

    aspire new aspire-starter --name aspire-starter

    The command creates a new directory named aspire-starter with a complete Aspire solution, including:

    • An AppHost project for orchestration
    • A ServiceDefaults project for shared configurations
    • Sample API and web frontend projects

  5. Navigate into the project directory:

    cd aspire-starter

Add Azure App Service integration

Configure your Aspire app to deploy to Azure App Service.

  1. Add the Azure App Service hosting integration package:

    aspire add azure-appservice

    The aspire add command automatically detects the AppHost project and adds the Aspire.Hosting.Azure.AppService package to it.

  2. Open the aspire-starter/aspire-starter.AppHost/AppHost.cs.

  3. Add an Azure App Service environment after the CreateBuilder line:

    builder.AddAzureAppServiceEnvironment("app-service-env");

    For more information, see Do I need an App Service environment to run Aspire apps?.

  4. Add .WithExternalHttpEndpoints() to the apiservice project. Your complete apiservice code should look like:

    var apiService = builder.AddProject<Projects.aspire_starter_ApiService>("apiservice")
    .WithExternalHttpEndpoints()
    .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health");

    Note

    The apiservice needs .WithExternalHttpEndpoints() because Aspire with App Service currently doesn't manage traffic between apps through internal endpoints. apiservice needs to be accessible via external HTTP endpoints for service-to-service communication to work.

Deploy to Azure

  1. From the aspire-starter directly, initialize azd in the current directory:

    azd init

    When prompted,

    • Select Scan current directory.
    • Select Confirm and continue initializing my app.
    • For Enter a unique environment name:, enter a name you want like aspire-quickstart.

    The command creates the necessary configuration files for deployment, which by default is just an azure.yaml file that points to your AppHost project. This configuration allows azd up to work by identifying your AppHost project. The host: containerapp value doesn't determine your deployment target because azd uses the infrastructure defined in your AppHost.cs file (in this case, the App Service environment you added with AddAzureAppServiceEnvironment).

  2. Sign in to Azure with azd auth login. It will launch an interactive login page. Sign in with your Azure account credentials.

    azd auth login

  3. Deploy the application:

    azd up

    When prompted:

    • Subscription: Select your Azure subscription
    • Location: Select a region near you (for example, (Europe) West Europe (westeurope))

    The azd up command performs the following actions based on your AppHost.cs code:

    • Creates a new resource group
    • Creates an Azure App Service Plan
    • Creates an Azure Container Registry
    • Creates two App Service web apps (one for the API, one for the frontend)
    • Creates a managed Aspire Dashboard resource
    • Builds and containerizes your applications
    • Pushes the containers to Azure Container Registry
    • Deploys the containers to App Service

    This process takes several minutes to complete.

  4. When deployment completes, azd displays the endpoint URLs for your deployed services.

    Deploying services (azd deploy)

  (✓) Done: Deploying service apiservice
  - Endpoint: https://apiservice-xxxxxx.azurewebsites.net/ 

  (✓) Done: Deploying service webfrontend
  - Endpoint: https://webfrontend-xxxxxx.azurewebsites.net/ 

  Aspire Dashboard: https://app-service-env-aspiredashboard-xxxxxx.azurewebsites.net

SUCCESS: Your up workflow to provision and deploy to Azure completed in 1 minute 49 seconds.

Browse your Aspire app

  1. In the deployment output, find the URL for the webfrontend service. It looks similar to:

    webfrontend: https://webfrontend-xxxxx.azurewebsites.net

  2. Copy the URL and open it in a new browser tab.

    You see the Aspire starter app running in Azure App Service. The web frontend communicates with the API service, demonstrating the distributed architecture.

  3. Try navigating through the app to verify it's working correctly.

  4. To view the Aspire Dashboard, find the Aspire Dashboard URL in the deployment output and open it in a new browser tab.

    A screenshot of the Aspire dashboard of an app running in Azure App Service.

View deployment details in Azure portal

  1. Navigate to the Azure portal.

  2. In the search bar, type resource groups and select Resource Groups.

  3. Find and select the resource group created by azd (it starts with rg- followed by your environment name).

    A screenshot of the resource group view of an Aspire app deployed by AZD.

    You should see the following resources:

    • App Service Plan: The hosting infrastructure
    • App Services: Your webfrontend and apiservice apps
    • Aspire Dashboard: A managed Azure resource, protected by resource backed access control (RBAC).
    • Container Registry: Stores your container images
    • User Assigned Identity: Provides secure access between services

Clean up resources

When you no longer need the Azure resources, delete them to avoid incurring charges.

  1. In your codespace terminal, run:

    azd down

  2. When prompted, confirm you want to delete the resources.

  3. Select Yes to permanently delete the resource group and all resources.

The command removes all Azure resources created during this quickstart.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an App Service environment to run Aspire apps?

No, you don't need an App Service environment to run Aspire apps in Azure App Service. The AddAzureAppServiceEnvironment method creates an Aspire environment concept that represents the hosting infrastructure for your application, which happens to be App Service in this case. Despite its name, it doesn't refer to App Service environments.

When you call AddAzureAppServiceEnvironment, it provisions:

  • An Azure App Service Plan (Premium P0V3 tier on Linux by default)
  • An Azure Container Registry for storing container images
  • A user-assigned managed identity for secure access between services

This Aspire environment concept groups your resources together and provides the infrastructure needed to deploy your Aspire apps to Azure App Service.

How do I customize my App Service deployment?

You can customize your App Service deployment by modifying the AppHost.cs configuration. The Aspire Azure App Service integration provides several ways to customize your deployment:

  • Configure the App Service Plan: Adjust SKU, tier, and scaling options
  • Customize App Service settings: Add environment variables, connection strings, and app settings
  • Configure infrastructure: Modify networking, authentication, and other Azure resources
  • Use existing resources: Connect to existing App Service Plans or other Azure resources

For more information, see Configure an Aspire app for Azure App Service.

Next steps

You successfully deployed an Aspire app to Azure App Service! Here are some next steps to explore:

Configure an Aspire app for Azure App Service

Azure App Service documentation

Explore Azure App Service features

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