FAQs

How can I help?

Try out Farmer and see what you think.

  • Create as many issues as you can for both bugs, discussions and features
  • Create suggestions for features and the most important elements you would like to see added

I have an Azure subscription, but I’m not an expert. I like the look of this - how do I “use” it?

  1. Create an ARM template using the Farmer sample app.
  2. Follow the steps here to deploy the generated template into Azure.
  3. Log any issues or ideas that you find here.

How do I get Farmer to work from a continuous deployment (CD) process?

  1. Look at some of the alternative strategies outlined here.
  2. Read up on ARM deployment strategies e.g. Azure Devops have guides here.

The Farmer .NET Template also has support for creating a Azure Devops-ready application from scratch.

I don’t know F#. Would you consider writing a C# version of this?

I’m afraid not. F# isn’t hard to learn (especially for simple DSLs such as this), and you can easily integrate F# applications as part of a dotnet solution, since F# is a first-class citizen of the dotnet core ecosystem. You can even create new resources in C# since the core abstractions of Farmer are two simple .NET interfaces.

Are you trying to replace ARM templates?

No, we’re not. Farmer generates ARM templates that can be used just as normal; Farmer can also be used simplify to make the process of getting started much simpler, or incorporated into your build pipeline as a way to avoid managing difficult-to-manage ARM templates and instead use them as the final part of your build / release pipeline.

Are you trying to compete with Pulumi?

No, we’re not. Farmer has (at least currently) a specific goal in mind, which is to lower the barrier to entry for creating and working with ARM templates. We’re not looking to create a cross-platform DSL to also support things like Terraform etc. or provide a stateful service store that Pulumi offers. Instead, Farmer is a simple way to continue to use ARM templates today but benefit from a more rapid authoring and maintenance process.

There’s no support for variables or parameters!

Farmer intentionally has limited support for ARM parameters and variables. Read here to find out the alternatives.

Can I add resources that are not supported by Farmer?

Yes. You can use some adapters that Farmer provides to generate resources using basic .NET objects, or even paste ARM template JSON directly into Farmer and have that embedded inside. See the following links from the Contributing section:

The resource I need isn’t included!

Create an issue on our github repository, ideally with a sample ARM template and a link to the official Microsoft documentation on the resource. We can’t promise we’ll look at it immediately, but raising the issue is an important first step to getting more resources supported.

But our organisation really needs that resource enhancement today!

Drop us an email explaining what you need; we’re happy to discuss a commercial support arrangement to provide you with features that you need in a more timely fashion.