Azure Container Apps deployment

This guide is the Azure Container Apps source-deployment baseline for freshly generated Cephalon apps.

Use it when you want a generated host to move from scaffolded source into a hosted Azure Container Apps baseline through the shipped Dockerfile and az containerapp up --source, without inventing a separate image-packaging workflow first.

What ships now

Generated app roots from cephalon new and the app-focused dotnet new cephalon-* starters now include:

NuGet.config
.cephalon/packages/README.md
Dockerfile
deploy/azure-container-apps/README.md
deploy/azure-container-apps/deploy-up.ps1

The generated deployment script validates the source root, keeps ingress external by default, targets port 8080, and deploys the app through az containerapp up --source.

Prerequisites

a generated app root from cephalon new or dotnet new cephalon-*
Cephalon* packages available either through ./.cephalon/packages or a shared package source that replaces the generated cephalon feed entry
Azure CLI installed on the machine that performs the deploy
az login already completed for the target subscription

If you want to locally validate the generated Dockerfile before the Azure deploy, keep Docker Desktop or another compatible Docker engine available too. If you want a provider-neutral registry build/tag/push step first, continue with Container image publishing.

Preview the Azure deploy contract

Example for a scaffolded modular-monolith app:

pwsh ./Acme.Store/deploy/azure-container-apps/deploy-up.ps1 `
  -ResourceGroupName my-resource-group `
  -Location eastus `
  -AppName my-cephalon-app `
  -Preview

The preview step only validates the generated source assets and prints the Azure CLI command. It does not contact Azure.

If you want to pin the deployment to an existing Container Apps environment, also pass -ContainerAppEnvironment my-container-apps-env.

Deploy to Azure Container Apps

When you are ready to deploy for real:

az login
pwsh ./Acme.Store/deploy/azure-container-apps/deploy-up.ps1 `
  -ResourceGroupName my-resource-group `
  -Location eastus `
  -AppName my-cephalon-app `
  -ContainerAppEnvironment my-container-apps-env

The generated script:

validates that the generated app root still contains Dockerfile and NuGet.config
deploys from the generated source root through az containerapp up --source
configures ingress as external
sets the target port to 8080
passes ASPNETCORE_HTTP_PORTS=8080 and DOTNET_ENVIRONMENT=Production

If you need extra runtime configuration, pass additional -EnvironmentVariables key=value entries when you invoke the script.

Inspect the running host

Once the app is deployed, inspect:

/engine
/engine/snapshot
/engine/runtime-story
/health
/health/ready
/scalar

These routes should behave the same way they do under dotnet run, the published-output smoke path, and the local container path.

Optional repo-native validation script

To replay the generated Azure Container Apps baseline from the Cephalon repository in one command, run:

pwsh ./scripts/validate-generated-app-container-apps.ps1

That script:

scaffolds a fresh app through Cephalon.Cli
seeds ./.cephalon/packages with repo-local package artifacts
validates that the generated app root contains the shipped Docker and Azure deploy assets
builds the generated container image locally unless -SkipDockerBuild is supplied
replays the shipped Container Apps deploy script in preview mode
tears the temporary app back down afterward unless -KeepOutput is supplied