# What is the AzAPI provider?

The AzureRM provider in Terraform is familiar to everyone working with Azure infrastructure as code. However, the AzureRM provider doesn't always support the latest releases and changes to services, proving hard for any engineer to include an as-code solution for everything.

As such, Microsoft released the AzAPI provider to give users day-zero support on features/changes. This was a welcome addition, but how many of you know this exists, how it differentiates from the AzureRM provider, and how to use it in conjunction with the AzureRM provider.

## A little more about AzAPI

AzAPI was built to support missing features or configurations that have yet or will never be supported in the AzureRM provider. It utilises the JSON config to specify configurations in a resource block.

There are three resource types:

* **azapi\_resource** - used for complete resource management
    
* **azapi\_resource\_action** - used for specific actions on a resource. For example, start/stop a virtual machine
    
* **azapi\_update\_resource** - used to manage configurations where AzureRM also manages partially.
    

## Using AzAPI

### Provider

You will need to add the azapi provider. It will look like the below (check if there are any newer versions of the provider):

```json
terraform {
  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      source = "hashicorp/azurerm"
      version = "3.27.0"
    }
    azapi = {
      source = "Azure/azapi"
      version = "1.0.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "azurerm" {}
provider "azapi" {}
```

### Find the Type

Within any of the above resource types, you will need to set the value of **type** in the resource block.

To find the type, you can either use an existing resource where you can open the JSON view and take the type:

![Image of resource JSON where line 4 shows resource type.](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1672479823049/b1be558c-ea51-4568-9a3e-63b1b3332536.png align="center")

Alternatively, you can locate the resource type by using Azure CLI:

1. Login to Azure CLI
    
2. Run the following command to list providers (take note of the provider you require):
    
    ```bash
    az provider list --query "[].{Provider:namespace, Status:registrationState}" --out table
    ```
    
3. Run the following command to list resources within the provider (replace **Microsoft.KeyVault** with the provider you found above):
    
    ```bash
    az provider show --namespace Microsoft.KeyVault --query "resourceTypes[*].resourceType" --out table
    ```
    

Once you have found the provider and resource, you must locate an API version. To do this, run the following command, replacing the provider and resource with what you require:

```bash
az provider show --namespace Microsoft.KeyVault --query "resourceTypes[?resourceType=='vaults'].apiVersions | [0]" --out table
```

Try an API version (recommend the latest non-preview) or if you know the specific version, use that instead.

Now you can bring it together to set your type in the resource block:

```json
resource "azapi_update_resource" "azure_key_vault" {
  type        = "Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults@2016-10-01"
```

### Resource ID

You will need to specify a resource ID using either an existing resource in code or a data source. The ID would look something like this:

```json
  resource_id = azurerm_key_vault.mykeyvault.id
```

### Add JSON

Use the **body** within the resource block and set the body to **jsonencode**. Then add the **properties** block where you can add your json config. Remember, it must be formatted correctly, or it will cause errors on deployment.

```json
  body = jsonencode({
    "properties" = {
      "enabledForDeployment": false,
      "softDeleteRetentionInDays": 90
    }
  })
```

## Conclusion

The result should look something like this:

```json
terraform {
  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      source = "hashicorp/azurerm"
      version = "3.27.0"
    }
    azapi = {
      source = "Azure/azapi"
      version = "1.0.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "azurerm" {}
provider "azapi" {}

resource "azapi_update_resource" "azure_key_vault" {
  type        = "Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults@2016-10-01"
  resource_id = azurerm_key_vault.mykeyvault.id
  body = jsonencode({
    "properties" = {
      "enabledForDeployment": false,
      "softDeleteRetentionInDays": 90
    }
  })
```

Remember to select the right resource from the AzAPI provider to complete actions correctly.

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