Using Locally with ARM Templates

Resource Group Deployments

Most templates deploy into a Resource Group. For example, this template creates an Availability Set:

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Compute/availabilitySets",
      "apiVersion": "2024-11-01",
      "name": "example-from-armtemplate",
      "location": "berlin",
      "properties": {
        "platformFaultDomainCount": 3,
        "platformUpdateDomainCount": 5
      },
      "sku": {
        "name": "Aligned"
      }
    }
  ]
}

If Locally isn't already running, we'll need to start it by running:

Then, if the template's saved as template.json, you can deploy it with:

If you don't specify a Subscription, the first Subscription alphabetically will be used, and if you don't specify a name for the Resource Group or Deployment then one will be randomly generated as needed. You can specify these values by setting:

• --subscription {UUID} - the Subscription to deploy into. Defaults to the First Subscription.
• --resource-group {name} - the Resource Group to deploy into, which is created if it doesn't already exist.
• --deployment {name} - the name to record the Deployment under.
• --parameters {file} - a parameters file (.json).

For example, to deploy into a Resource Group named dev in a specific Subscription:

Subscription Deployments

To deploy at the Subscription scope instead, use the Subscription deployment template $schema. This one creates a Resource Group:

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2018-05-01/subscriptionDeploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Resources/resourceGroups",
      "apiVersion": "2021-04-01",
      "name": "from-subscription-deployment",
      "location": "berlin"
    }
  ]
}

Subscription deployments also take a --location flag, which sets where the Deployment's metadata is stored and defaults to berlin:

The --subscription, --deployment and --parameters flags work the same way as for Resource Group deployments, but --resource-group doesn't apply at this scope.

Management Group & Tenant Deployments

Locally doesn't support Management Group or Tenant scoped deployments at this time, but we plan to in the future. We're tracking this feature request in this issue on the Locally Issue tracker.

Deploying via the Azure CLI

If you'd rather use the Azure CLI, prefix az deployment group create with locally run to deploy an ARM Template into an existing Resource Group:

Next steps

You can see what you've deployed in the Locally Dashboard, and the Examples include ARM Templates for many common resources. If you'd rather write Bicep, see the Bicep guide.