Deploying Node.js to Azure App Service

Introduction

This guide explains how to use GitHub Actions to build, test, and deploy a Node.js project to Azure App Service.

Prerequisites

Before creating your GitHub Actions workflow, you will first need to complete the following setup steps:

1. 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
   

   In the command above, replace MY_RESOURCE_GROUP with your pre-existing Azure Resource Group, and MY_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."

2. Create a web app.

   For example, you can use the Azure CLI to create an Azure App Service web app with a Node.js runtime:

   Bash

   az webapp create \
       --name MY_WEBAPP_NAME \
       --plan MY_APP_SERVICE_PLAN \
       --resource-group MY_RESOURCE_GROUP \
       --runtime "NODE|14-lts"
   

   In the command above, replace the parameters with your own values, where MY_WEBAPP_NAME is a new name for the web app.

3. 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."

4. Optionally, configure a deployment environment. Environments are used to describe a general deployment target like production, staging, or development. 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, or limit access to secrets. For more information about creating environments, see "Using 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, test, and deploy the Node.js 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 the path to your project is not the repository root, change AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH to your project path. If you use a version of Node.js other than 10.x, change NODE_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, 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.

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

env:
  AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: MY_WEBAPP_NAME   # set this to your application's name
  AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.'      # set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root
  NODE_VERSION: '14.x'                # set this to the node version to use

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Set up Node.js
      uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
        cache: 'npm'

    - name: npm install, build, and test
      run: |
        npm install
        npm run build --if-present
        npm run test --if-present
    - name: Upload artifact for deployment job
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
      with:
        name: node-app
        path: .

  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@v3
      with:
        name: node-app

    - name: 'Deploy to Azure WebApp'
      id: deploy-to-webapp 
      uses: azure/webapps-deploy@85270a1854658d167ab239bce43949edb336fa7c
      with:
        app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
        publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_WEBAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
        package: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}

# 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.

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

env:
  AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME: MY_WEBAPP_NAME   # set this to your application's name
  AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH: '.'      # set this to the path to your web app project, defaults to the repository root
  NODE_VERSION: '14.x'                # set this to the node version to use

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Set up Node.js
      uses: actions/setup-node@v3
      with:
        node-version: ${{ env.NODE_VERSION }}
        cache: 'npm'

    - name: npm install, build, and test
      run: |
        npm install
        npm run build --if-present
        npm run test --if-present
    - name: Upload artifact for deployment job
      uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
      with:
        name: node-app
        path: .

  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@v3
      with:
        name: node-app

    - name: 'Deploy to Azure WebApp'
      id: deploy-to-webapp 
      uses: azure/webapps-deploy@85270a1854658d167ab239bce43949edb336fa7c
      with:
        app-name: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_NAME }}
        publish-profile: ${{ secrets.AZURE_WEBAPP_PUBLISH_PROFILE }}
        package: ${{ env.AZURE_WEBAPP_PACKAGE_PATH }}

Additional resources

The following resources may also be useful:

• For the original starter workflow, see azure-webapps-node.yml in the GitHub Actions starter-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.
• The "Create a Node.js web app in Azure" quickstart in the Azure web app documentation demonstrates using Visual Studio Code with the Azure App Service extension.