How to Fix the [ERROR] Get-ChildItem when Deploying an Azure Resource Group in Visual Studio

Lately, I've been having some trouble when deploying from Visual Studio. First, I didn't care since I didn't have time to investigate and also because most of the time using PowerShell or Azure CLI. However, this issue was not usual of Visual Studio, so I decided to see what was the problem and try to fix it.

The Problem

In a solution, I added a simple Azure Resource Group deployment project just like this one.



Then when I try to right-click and do a Deploy...



I was having this error message:

 - The following parameter values will be used for this operation:
 - Build started.
 - Project "TestARMProject.deployproj" (StageArtifacts target(s)):
 - Project "TestARMProject.deployproj" (ContentFilesProjectOutputGroup target(s)):
 - Done building project "TestARMProject.deployproj".
 - Done building project "TestARMProject.deployproj".
 - Build succeeded.
 - Launching PowerShell script with the following command:
 - 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1' -StorageAccountName '' -ResourceGroupName 'TestARMProject' -ResourceGroupLocation 'eastus' -TemplateFile 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.json' -TemplateParametersFile 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.parameters.json' -ArtifactStagingDirectory '.' -DSCSourceFolder '.\DSC'
 - 
 - 
 - Account          : Frank Boucher
 - SubscriptionName : My Subscription
 - SubscriptionId   : xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 - TenantId         : xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 - Environment      : AzureCloud
 - 
 - VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Replacing resource group ..." on target "".
 - VERBOSE: 7:06:33 - Created resource group 'TestARMProject' in location 'eastus'
 - 
 - ResourceGroupName : TestARMProject
 - Location          : eastus
 - ProvisioningState : Succeeded
 - Tags              : 
 - TagsTable         : 
 - ResourceId        : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/TestARMProject
 - 
 - Get-ChildItem : Cannot find path 
 - 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.json' because it does not 
 - exist.
 - At D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1:108 
 - char:48
 - + ... RmResourceGroupDeployment -Name ((Get-ChildItem $TemplateFile).BaseNa ...
 - +                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -     + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (D:\Dev\local\Te...zuredeploy.json:String) [Get-ChildItem], ItemNotFound 
 -    Exception
 -     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
 -  
 - Deploying template using PowerShell script failed.
 - Tell us about your experience at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691202

Apparently the script is failling with Get-ChildItem because my script is missing?! I looked in the folder D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject, and indeed the files are missing! Fixing this is in fact really simple fortunately.

The Solution

The problem is very simple when Visual Studio is building the project, it doen't copies the script files in the build folder (in this case bin\Debug\Staging\). In fact, Visual Studio is doing exactly as we are telling it. Let see the build command for those files. Right-click and select Properties (or Alt+Enter) while azuredeploy.json is selected.



See the Build Action is set at None change that to Content (for all the scripts). Save and Deploy again.



Enjoy!

Reading Notes #245

Cloud

• Application Insights: Track an Analytics query in a dashboard (Dan Hadari) - Nice quick intro to Azure analytics.
• Logging and Error Handling in Logic Apps - Interesting post that shares a solution for real-life problem, by using document DB.
• Visualizing your Azure enterprise costs with Power BI - PowerBI is fantastic to visualize data consumption, this post explains how EA subscription owner can now use it easily.

Miscellaneous

• 5 Reasons Your Daily Scrum is Boring - So simple and so hard to achieve. This post explains how to avoid common mistakes.
• How Do I Write Good Code? (Erik Dietrich) - Simple tips that will make our code rocks.