Introduction
This guide explains how to use GitHub Actions to build and deploy a Python project to Azure App Service.
Note
If your GitHub Actions workflows need to access resources from a cloud provider that supports OpenID Connect (OIDC), you can configure your workflows to authenticate directly to the cloud provider. This will let you stop storing these credentials as long-lived secrets and provide other security benefits. For more information, see "About security hardening with OpenID Connect" and Configuring OpenID Connect in Azure.
Prerequisites
Before creating your GitHub Actions workflow, you will first need to complete the following setup steps:
-
Create an Azure App Service plan.
For example, you can use the Azure CLI to create a new App Service plan:
Bash az appservice plan create \ --resource-group MY_RESOURCE_GROUP \ --name MY_APP_SERVICE_PLAN \ --is-linux
az appservice plan create \ --resource-group MY_RESOURCE_GROUP \ --name MY_APP_SERVICE_PLAN \ --is-linux
In the command above, replace
MY_RESOURCE_GROUP
with your pre-existing Azure Resource Group, andMY_APP_SERVICE_PLAN
with a new name for the App Service plan.See the Azure documentation for more information on using the Azure CLI:
- For authentication, see "Sign in with Azure CLI."
- If you need to create a new resource group, see "az group."
-
Create a web app.
For example, you can use the Azure CLI to create an Azure App Service web app with a Python runtime:
Bash az webapp create \ --name MY_WEBAPP_NAME \ --plan MY_APP_SERVICE_PLAN \ --resource-group MY_RESOURCE_GROUP \ --runtime "python|3.8"
az webapp create \ --name MY_WEBAPP_NAME \ --plan MY_APP_SERVICE_PLAN \ --resource-group MY_RESOURCE_GROUP \ --runtime "python|3.8"
In the command above, replace the parameters with your own values, where
MY_WEBAPP_NAME
is a new name for the web app. -
Configure an Azure publish profile and create an
AZURE_WEBAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE
secret.Generate your Azure deployment credentials using a publish profile. For more information, see "Generate deployment credentials" in the Azure documentation.
In your GitHub repository, create a secret named
AZURE_WEBAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE
that contains the contents of the publish profile. For more information on creating secrets, see "Using secrets in GitHub Actions." -
Add an app setting called
SCM_DO_BUILD_DURING_DEPLOYMENT
and set the value to1
. -
Optionally, configure a deployment environment. Environments are used to describe a general deployment target like
production
,staging
, ordevelopment
. When a GitHub Actions workflow deploys to an environment, the environment is displayed on the main page of the repository. You can use environments to require approval for a job to proceed, restrict which branches can trigger a workflow, gate deployments with custom deployment protection rules, or limit access to secrets. For more information about creating environments, see "Managing environments for deployment."
Creating the workflow
Once you've completed the prerequisites, you can proceed with creating the workflow.
The following example workflow demonstrates how to build and deploy a Python project to Azure App Service when there is a push to the main
branch.
Ensure that you set AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME
in the workflow env
key to the name of the web app you created. If you use a version of Python other than 3.8
, change PYTHON_VERSION
to the version that you use.
If you configured a deployment environment, change the value of environment
to be the name of your environment. If you did not configure an environment or if your workflow is in a private repository and you do not use GitHub Enterprise Cloud, delete the environment
key.
# This workflow uses actions that are not certified by GitHub. # They are provided by a third-party and are governed by # separate terms of service, privacy policy, and support # documentation. # GitHub recommends pinning actions to a commit SHA. # To get a newer version, you will need to update the SHA. # You can also reference a tag or branch, but the action may change without warning. name: Build and deploy Python app to Azure Web App env: AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: MY_WEBAPP_NAME # set this to your application's name PYTHON_VERSION: '3.8' # set this to the Python version to use on: push: branches: - main jobs: build: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v4 - name: Set up Python version uses: actions/setup-python@v5 with: python-version: ${{ env.PYTHON_VERSION }} - name: Create and start virtual environment run: | python -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate - name: Set up dependency caching for faster installs uses: actions/cache@v3 with: path: ~/.cache/pip key: ${{ runner.os }}-pip-${{ hashFiles('**/requirements.txt') }} restore-keys: | ${{ runner.os }}-pip- - name: Install dependencies run: pip install -r requirements.txt # Optional: Add a step to run tests here (PyTest, Django test suites, etc.) - name: Upload artifact for deployment jobs uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4 with: name: python-app path: | . !venv/ deploy: runs-on: ubuntu-latest needs: build environment: name: 'production' url: ${{ steps.deploy-to-webapp.outputs.webapp-url }} steps: - name: Download artifact from build job uses: actions/download-artifact@v4 with: name: python-app path: . - name: 'Deploy to Azure Web App' id: deploy-to-webapp uses: azure/webapps-deploy@85270a1854658d167ab239bce43949edb336fa7c with: app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }} publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_WEBAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
# This workflow uses actions that are not certified by GitHub.
# They are provided by a third-party and are governed by
# separate terms of service, privacy policy, and support
# documentation.
# GitHub recommends pinning actions to a commit SHA.
# To get a newer version, you will need to update the SHA.
# You can also reference a tag or branch, but the action may change without warning.
name: Build and deploy Python app to Azure Web App
env:
AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: MY_WEBAPP_NAME # set this to your application's name
PYTHON_VERSION: '3.8' # set this to the Python version to use
on:
push:
branches:
- main
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Set up Python version
uses: actions/setup-python@v5
with:
python-version: ${{ env.PYTHON_VERSION }}
- name: Create and start virtual environment
run: |
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
- name: Set up dependency caching for faster installs
uses: actions/cache@v3
with:
path: ~/.cache/pip
key: ${{ runner.os }}-pip-${{ hashFiles('**/requirements.txt') }}
restore-keys: |
${{ runner.os }}-pip-
- name: Install dependencies
run: pip install -r requirements.txt
# Optional: Add a step to run tests here (PyTest, Django test suites, etc.)
- name: Upload artifact for deployment jobs
uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
with:
name: python-app
path: |
.
!venv/
deploy:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
needs: build
environment:
name: 'production'
url: ${{ steps.deploy-to-webapp.outputs.webapp-url }}
steps:
- name: Download artifact from build job
uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
with:
name: python-app
path: .
- name: 'Deploy to Azure Web App'
id: deploy-to-webapp
uses: azure/webapps-deploy@85270a1854658d167ab239bce43949edb336fa7c
with:
app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_WEBAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
Additional resources
The following resources may also be useful:
- For the original workflow template, see
azure-webapps-python.yml
in the GitHub Actionsstarter-workflows
repository. - The action used to deploy the web app is the official Azure
Azure/webapps-deploy
action. - For more examples of GitHub Action workflows that deploy to Azure, see the actions-workflow-samples repository.