Carrying on my research into Azure Functions and Serverless technologies this is a quick blog post to highlight the use of Azure Functions Core Tools.

What are Azure Functions Core Tools?

Simply put, they are a set of tools that enable you to develop and test Azure Functions on a local computer. They are primarily utilised for developing the files required for Azure Functions, Enable the running of the functions locally, and then finally the ability to upload and publish your functions to Azure.

The tools are packaged as a single command line ‘func’ and if you run that command line you will get a neat little display!

Download and install the tools

The Azure Functions core tools are reliant on the AZURE CLI for authentication to Azure.

Azure Funcitons core tools can be downloaded from the NPMJS site.

For more information on creating your first function utilising the tools refer to the Microsoft Docs article.

Alternately, if you us VSCode you can download a pretty neat Azure Functions Extension:

Once installed from the Extensions libray you will see an Azure logo in the side bar:

The benefit of these tools is that you have the complete ability to configure test and run your functions before you publish to Azure and the support of VSCode enables you to do this in an environment familiar to you today!

For me this makes it so much easier to get familiar with the files required for the different Function types and allows me to familiarise myself in my own environment without the requirements of building an Azure Function App in Azure and potentially costing money whilst I develop!

100DaysOfCloud Overview

My Main ReadMe Page is all set up with a bit about me!

The guys at 100DaysofCloud have set up the GitHub repo to be cloned and also have a great repo containing ideas and areas to collaborate on: https://github.com/100DaysOfCloud/100DaysOfCloudIdeas

My Github Journey tracker can be found here: https://github.com/jonnychipz/100DaysOfCloud

Please Watch/Star my repo and feel free to comment of contribute to anything I push! I really look forward to hearing from anyone who is going to jump on the journey around the same time as me! Lets see where I get to in 100 days!

I would encourage others to jump on this journey, I’m not sure that I will be able to commit every day for 100 days, but as long as I can complete 100 days that will be great!