Azure-cli: No equivalent to -WhatIf flag in Azure CLI for Azure deployments

Created on 12 Feb 2018 · 8Comments · Source: Azure/azure-cli

Azure CLI has no equivalent to the -WhatIf flag in the Azure PowerShell cmdlets to print what would happen if a template were to be deployed.

This is a feature often requested from users of Terraform, where they want to see what some local changes to the template would do if deployed.

We should add a --dry-run flag to az group deployment create.

Environment summary

azure-cli (2.0.26) via MSI installer

ARM ARM - Templates Service Attention

Source

stewartadam

👍15

Most helpful comment

We announced a private preview that will be starting this week. PowerShell will be first, closely followed by Az CLI.

More info here: https://aka.ms/MicrosoftIgnite2019/BRK3233

Sign ups for private preview are here: https://aka.ms/ARMTemplatePreviews

alex-frankel on 11 Nov 2019

👍2

All 8 comments

Have you tried az group deployment validate? Does that differ from what you are expecting?

tjprescott on 12 Feb 2018

az group deployment validate tells you if the deployment is syntactically correct, but not what the execution of the deployment it would do. This is the often asked for feature that terraform has (terraform plan).

stewartadam on 25 Mar 2018

👍2

This will come from ARM service end

yugangw-msft on 30 Jan 2019

Is this functionality implemented on the server side already, or how does Powershell do it?

rickardp on 13 Feb 2019

👍2

The -WhatIf powershell cmdlet is not actually doing what was described in the issue. It doesn't preview what the deployment is going to do. -WhatIf is a standard flag for many powershell cmdlets.

Having said that, the feature you are describing is being worked on as we speak :) We are hoping to have a public preview available of ARM template what-if for both powershell and CLI by Ignite of this year. Will update this issue when that is done.

alex-frankel on 25 Sep 2019

👍2

The -WhatIf powershell cmdlet is not actually doing what was described in the issue. It doesn't preview what the deployment is going to do. -WhatIf is a standard flag for many powershell cmdlets.

Having said that, the feature you are describing is being worked on as we speak :) We are hoping to have a public preview available of ARM template what-if for both powershell and CLI by Ignite of this year. Will update this issue when that is done.

Ignite was this week - any news @alex-frankel ?