Developing and Running Azure Functions

Azure Functions is one of the serverless technologies offered by Azure. It allows you to run code on-demand in response to a variety of events.

In this chapter, we will provide a brief explanation of what Azure Functions is and how it works. We will also introduce all the tools you can use to create, develop, and test a solution based on Azure Functions. The first tool we will look at is Azure Functions Core Tools, which is the most important tool you can use when you start to develop your Azure Functions solution because with it you can create, test, and deploy your Azure Functions. In this chapter, you will also learn how Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code can help you to improve your developer experience and how you can use other tools to support the documentation and testing phases.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• Introduction to Azure Functions
• Azure Functions Core Tools and the Azure Functions runtime
• Creating Azure Functions in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code
• Using the OpenAPI specification to document the API
• Using ngrok to expose a local Azure Function on the internet
• Debugging an Azure Function both locally and remotely