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Add post-deployment guidance for ASP.NET Core + EF + SQL with managed identity#959

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tmeschter merged 11 commits intomainfrom
copilot/automate-app-service-access
Mar 2, 2026
Merged

Add post-deployment guidance for ASP.NET Core + EF + SQL with managed identity#959
tmeschter merged 11 commits intomainfrom
copilot/automate-app-service-access

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Copilot AI commented Feb 18, 2026 •
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Implementation Plan: ASP.NET Core + EF Core + SQL Post-Deployment

Phase 1: Documentation Structure ✅

  • Create post-deployment reference documentation
    • Create post-deployment.md with ASP.NET + SQL patterns
    • Create sql-managed-identity.md with SQL permission grant scripts
    • Create ef-migrations.md with EF Core migration patterns

Phase 2: Verification Updates ✅

  • Update verify.md to include post-deployment steps
    • Add SQL database access verification
    • Add EF migrations verification
    • Add endpoint health check verification

Phase 3: Recipe Enhancement ✅

  • Update azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/README.md
    • Add post-deployment workflow step
    • Link to new post-deployment documentation

Phase 4: Testing ✅

  • Add trigger test cases for post-deployment scenarios
  • Update snapshots for new keywords (cli, identity, sql)
  • Update main SKILL.md with post-deployment step
  • All tests passing

Phase 5: Validation ✅

  • Manual verification of documentation flow
  • Review all file additions for completeness
  • CodeQL security scan (0 issues found)
  • Store memory for future reference

Phase 6: Optimization ✅

  • Compact ef-migrations.md (404→137 lines, 66% reduction)
  • Compact sql-managed-identity.md (289→112 lines, 61% reduction)

Phase 7: Code Review Fixes ✅

  • Fix test regex to use word boundaries
  • Make SQL role assignment truly idempotent
  • Remove || true error suppression
  • Fix variable consistency across documentation
  • Fix cross-directory reference (create sql-entra-auth.md)
  • Simplify variable assignments (remove redundant echo)

Summary

Successfully implemented comprehensive post-deployment documentation for the azure-deploy skill. All documentation optimized for token limits while maintaining clarity and completeness. Addressed all code review feedback for production-ready idempotent scripts.

Original prompt

This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>azure-deploy: Automatically grant App Service managed identity access to SQL Database and apply EF migrations</issue_title>
<issue_description>## Summary

After a successful azd up deployment of an ASP.NET Core app with Entity Framework Core and Azure SQL Database using Entra-only authentication, the app fails with HTTP 500 because:

  1. The App Service's system-assigned managed identity has no permissions on the SQL database
  2. EF Core migrations have not been applied — the database has no application tables

These are predictable post-provisioning steps that the azure-deploy skill should handle automatically.

Current Behavior

After azd up completes successfully, the deployed app crashes on startup with:

Login failed for user '<token-identified principal>'.
Error Number: 18456

The user must manually:

  1. Get an access token for the database
  2. Run CREATE USER [app-name] FROM EXTERNAL PROVIDER and grant db_datareader, db_datawriter, db_ddladmin roles
  3. Generate and apply EF migration SQL (dotnet ef migrations script --idempotent)
  4. Restart the App Service

Expected Behavior

The azure-deploy skill should include post-provisioning steps that:

  1. Detect that the architecture includes App Service + Azure SQL with managed identity
  2. Grant the App Service's managed identity database access using the Entra admin credentials
  3. Detect EF Core migrations in the project and apply them to the Azure SQL database
  4. Verify the deployed endpoint returns a successful HTTP status code

This could be implemented as an azd post-provision hook or as explicit steps in the deploy recipe.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Deploy an ASP.NET Core + EF Core app to App Service with Azure SQL (Entra-only auth)
  2. azd up succeeds but the app returns HTTP 500
  3. Manual SQL commands are needed to create the managed identity user and apply migrations

Suggested Fix

  • Add a post-provision hook template that grants managed identity SQL access
  • Detect EF Core projects (look for Migrations/ folder or Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore references) and auto-apply migrations
  • Add endpoint verification to the deploy verification steps in verify.md</issue_description>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

@tmeschter Note that this was an ASP.NET Core app deployed to an app service, along with an Azure SQL Server for a database.

We might need some dotnet-specific guidance around Entity Framework, similar to our NodeJS guidance.</comment_new>

💬 We'd love your input! Share your thoughts on Copilot coding agent in our 2 minute survey.

Copilot AI and others added 2 commits February 18, 2026 22:00
@kvenkatrajan
Add post-deployment documentation for ASP.NET Core + EF + SQL
a66f592 
Co-authored-by: kvenkatrajan <102772054+kvenkatrajan@users.noreply.github.com>
@kvenkatrajan
Add tests for post-deployment documentation and update snapshots
ebf803b 
Co-authored-by: kvenkatrajan <102772054+kvenkatrajan@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Add automatic access grant for managed identity on SQL Database Add post-deployment guidance for ASP.NET Core + EF + SQL with managed identity Feb 18, 2026
kvenkatrajan
kvenkatrajan reviewed Feb 18, 2026
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Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/ef-migrations.md Outdated
@kvenkatrajan
Compact ef-migrations.md from 404 to 137 lines (66% reduction)
9f3a79b 
Co-authored-by: kvenkatrajan <102772054+kvenkatrajan@users.noreply.github.com>
@kvenkatrajan
Compact sql-managed-identity.md from 289 to 112 lines (61% reduction)
bbc2f9a 
Co-authored-by: kvenkatrajan <102772054+kvenkatrajan@users.noreply.github.com>
This was referenced Feb 20, 2026
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tmeschter
tmeschter previously approved these changes Feb 26, 2026
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@tmeschter tmeschter marked this pull request as ready for review February 26, 2026 23:39
Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 26, 2026 23:39
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Pull request overview

Adds post-deployment documentation and verification guidance for ASP.NET Core + EF Core + Azure SQL deployments (managed identity / Entra auth), and updates skill references + tests accordingly.

Changes:

  • Added new post-deployment docs for managed identity SQL access and EF Core migrations
  • Expanded verify.md and recipe README to include post-deploy workflow and references
  • Updated unit tests and trigger keyword snapshot to reflect new post-deployment support

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

Show a summary per file
File Description
tests/azure-deploy/unit.test.ts Adds assertions that the skill content mentions post-deploy and SQL/EF migration guidance
tests/azure-deploy/snapshots/triggers.test.ts.snap Updates trigger keyword snapshot to include “sql”
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/verify.md Adds stepwise verification including health check, SQL access, schema checks, and links
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md New guide with SQL grant scripts, hook automation, verification, troubleshooting
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/post-deployment.md New consolidated post-deployment workflow guide and references
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/ef-migrations.md New EF Core migrations deployment patterns and troubleshooting
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/README.md Adds “Post-Deploy” step and references the new docs
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/SKILL.md Adds post-deploy step to the skill flow and links to docs

Comment thread tests/azure-deploy/unit.test.ts Outdated
Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md
Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md
Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md
Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/post-deployment.md Outdated
Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/ef-migrations.md Outdated
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github-actions Bot commented Feb 26, 2026 •
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🔍 Token Analysis Report

@github-copilot-for-azure/scripts@1.0.0 tokens
node --import tsx src/tokens/cli.ts compare --base origin/main --head HEAD --markdown

fatal: path 'plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/ef-migrations.md' exists on disk, but not in 'origin/main'
fatal: path 'plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/post-deployment.md' exists on disk, but not in 'origin/main'
fatal: path 'plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-entra-auth.md' exists on disk, but not in 'origin/main'
fatal: path 'plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md' exists on disk, but not in 'origin/main'

📊 Token Change Report

Comparing origin/main → HEAD

Summary

Metric Value
📈 Total Change +4,600 tokens (+249%)
Before 1,847 tokens
After 6,447 tokens
Files Changed 7

Changed Files

File Before After Change
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/ef-migrations.md - 1,318 +1318
plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md - 1,190 +1190
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@github-copilot-for-azure/scripts@1.0.0 tokens
node --import tsx src/tokens/cli.ts check --markdown

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Exceeded: 133 files

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Consider moving content to references/ subdirectories.

Automated token analysis. See skill authoring guidelines for best practices.

tmeschter
tmeschter reviewed Feb 26, 2026
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Comment thread plugin/skills/azure-deploy/references/recipes/azd/sql-managed-identity.md Outdated
@tmeschter
Fix SQL idempotency, error handling, and cross-directory references
0e246c0 
Co-authored-by: tmeschter <10506730+tmeschter@users.noreply.github.com>
tmeschter
tmeschter previously approved these changes Feb 27, 2026
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fanyang-mono commented Mar 2, 2026

I wonder if an integration test should be added for such scenario as well?

@tmeschter tmeschter merged commit 717b54f into main Mar 2, 2026
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@tmeschter tmeschter deleted the copilot/automate-app-service-access branch March 2, 2026 22:27
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azure-deploy: Automatically grant App Service managed identity access to SQL Database and apply EF migrations

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