10/21/2026 Admin

Walk-Thru: Aspire Deploy, Deploy Any Aspire Solution To Azure From A Blazor Desktop App

The Aspire Deploy home page in the light theme, showing the three getting-started steps and the recent profiles.

Aspire Deploy is a Windows desktop application (.NET MAUI Blazor Hybrid) that deploys any Aspire 13.x solution, from a local folder or a GitHub repository, to Azure Container Apps using aspire deploy and your own az login.

It scans the AppHost first for what it needs (the AppHost kind, Aspire version, parameters, resources and deployment targets), and it saves everything as per-developer deploy profiles, so a second deploy is one click. It can also take over a deployment that already exists, for example one made with aspire deploy on another machine.

In this article we will walk through the app, screen by screen.

Download: Aspire Deploy is free in the Microsoft Store.

Prerequisites

Windows 10 1809 or later
.NET 10 SDK (plus the MAUI workload only if you build the app from source)
Azure CLI (the app can run az login for you)
Docker Desktop or Podman, running
Node.js (only for TypeScript AppHosts) and the GitHub CLI (optional, for private repositories)

You do not need to install the Aspire CLI. If the aspire on your PATH does not match the AppHost's SDK version, the app installs the matching one for you.

Your AppHost needs an Azure compute environment, for example:

// Aspire.Hosting.Azure.AppContainers package
builder.AddAzureContainerAppEnvironment("env");

Setup

The Setup page showing six passed checks: .NET SDK, Azure CLI sign-in, container runtime, Node.js, GitHub CLI and Windows long paths.

Start the app (install it from the Microsoft Store, or run the Windows Machine profile in Visual Studio) and open the Setup tab. Click Run checks. Each tool shows Pass, Warn or Fail, along with the fix, and the commands that were run stream into the terminal output below.

Create A Profile

On the Profiles tab click New profile. The wizard has four steps: Source, Scan, Destination and Parameters.

The Scan step of the new profile wizard, showing the AppHost summary: path, kind, Aspire SDK 13.6.3 and the azure-container-apps target, with a Build button.

Pick the solution folder (or <owner>/<repo> on GitHub) and click Scan. The scan only reads files; nothing is built or run. It shows the AppHost summary: the path, the kind, the Aspire SDK version and the declared deployment targets. An AppHost without an Azure compute environment is refused right here, before anything is built.

Type a profile name and click Build. This runs aspire do publish-manifest to read the AppHost's parameters and resources. For a GitHub source the button reads Trust and build, and it builds exactly the commit the summary shows.

Tip: with a local folder, type the profile name first and the app scans and builds in one click.

Choose The Destination

The Destination step with New deployment selected, showing the subscription, tenant, region, resource group and the three Azure resource sections.

The subscription, tenant, region and resource group lists come from your az login. If az is not signed in, a Sign in to Azure button runs az login from inside the app.

Update An Existing Deployment

The Destination step with Update an existing deployment selected, showing the Find button that searches the subscription for the AppHost's container apps.

New in this version: choose Update an existing deployment and click Find. The app searches the subscription for resource groups that hold container apps named like the AppHost's compute resources (here apiservice and webfrontend), and shows how many were found and where they came from (aspire deploy, azd or unknown).

Click Use this on a result and the profile points at that deployment, so the first deploy updates the existing apps in place instead of creating a second copy.

Choose The Azure Resources

By default Aspire creates its own container registry, Container Apps environment and Log Analytics workspace in the profile's resource group. Each of those sections has three modes:

Mode	What happens on deploy
Let Aspire create	Aspire creates it in the profile's resource group.
Use existing	Pick one from any resource group in the subscription, and the deploy uses it as is.
Create new	Type a name (a valid one is suggested), and the app creates it with `az` before the deploy.

The Azure resources section with Create new selected for the registry (crshopprod, Basic SKU) and the environment (cae-shop-prod, logs to a new Log Analytics workspace).

Here Create new is selected for the registry (with its SKU) and the environment (with where its logs go). The app suggests valid names and checks registry names for availability as you type. After the first deploy, the profile switches these sections to Use existing.

The ACR pull identity section becomes available when the registry is Use existing. With an existing identity that already has AcrPull, the deploy creates no identity and no role assignment.

The Container apps plan, showing apiservice and webfrontend as NEW.

At the bottom of the step, the Container apps plan previews each compute resource as New, Updates existing or Conflict, by comparing it with what is already in Azure. A conflict blocks the deploy.

Fill in the Parameters step (this sample AppHost needs none) and click Save profile.

Note: Your AppHost files are never edited. The "use existing" calls are added through a temporary overlay at deploy time, and it is removed when the deploy finishes.

Deploy

The Profiles page listing four profiles with their resource group, registry and environment, and Deploy, Edit and Delete buttons.

The Profiles page lists each profile with its source, resource group, region, and the registry and environment when they are not left to Aspire. Click Deploy on a profile.

The Deploy to Azure confirmation dialog listing the tenant, subscription, resource group, registry, apps environment, container apps and environment.

Every deploy asks first, and shows exactly what will happen in Azure: what will be created, what already exists, and each container app as new or update.

The Deploy page after a dry run, with the deployment steps listed in the terminal output.

Tick Dry run the first time. It lists the deployment steps and creates nothing. Without it, the log streams while the deploy runs, and Cancel works at any point. When it finishes, the endpoints are in the log. A second deploy creates nothing new and just updates the apps.

The Guide And AI Help

The Guide tab, showing the built-in user guide with a table of contents and a diagram of how the app works.

The Guide tab contains the full user guide: diagrams, every mode, naming rules, and a troubleshooting table that quotes each error message. Each resource section on the profile page has a Help link that jumps right into it.

Optionally, configure an AI provider (OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Anthropic or Google AI) on the Settings page.

A AI Help button or ‘sparkle’ icon appears for each section, failed results, Setup warnings and the log toolbar.

It opens a chat beside the page, and every secret is replaced with [REDACTED] before anything leaves your machine and is sent to the configured LLM provider.

Removing A Deployment

Delete the profile's resource group in Azure. Deleting a profile never touches Azure, and existing resources a profile picked from other resource groups are never deleted by the app.

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