In previous article, we had a very high level introduction to Azure Bicep. There, we discussed that Azure Bicep provides better tooling which can help in improving the developer’s productivity. In this article, we are going to have a look at how to install the Azure Bicep tools.

Which tools are we going to have a look at ?

When we talk about using Azure Bicep, there are two different types of tools:

• the tools which can be used for authoring the Bicep files (i.e. for developer productivity)
• the tools which can be used for deploying the Bicep files

For authoring, Azure Bicep provides a extensions for both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. In the coming sections, we are going to have a look at all these tools.

VS Code Plugin Installation

The Visual Studio Code is one of the very famous IDE. It is free IDE supported by Microsoft. It needs no further introduction. In case you do not have it already, you can install it from this link.

Once Visual Studio code is installed, we can navigate to extensions option from the side menu and then search for Bicep. This extension provides support for creating and validating the bicep files. It also provides autocomplete feature which would help in increasing the productivity while authoring the bicep files.

Once this extension is installed and when we create the file with extension .bicep, the IDE should show the language mode Bicep in the lower right corner.

Visual Studio Plugin Installation

Visual Studio also has an extension with same name Bicep. If not already installed, Visual Studio can be installed from here. Once you have Visual Studio, we can go to Extensions -> Manage Extensions and then we can search for this extension and install it.

As in Code, this extension also supports autocomplete.

Bicep Deployment Tools

Now, let’s see which tools can be used to deploy the bicep files.

• Azure CLI (version 2.20.0 or later)
• PowerShell (version 5.6.0 or later)
• We can also install Bicep CLI manually (via chocolatey / winget / windows installer / bash / etc.)

Bicep files can also be deployed via CI / CD pipelines. In next few articles, we are going to have a look at the syntax of the language and how to deploy the bicep files using these different deployment tools.

I hope you find this information helpful. Let me know your thoughts.