Paste as Bicep

[aelij]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. There are many ARM samples out there. Even on MS docs, most samples are still JSON. Copying and pasting pieces from samples is a very common way to build a template. Right now the only option for Bicep is to download a template file, decompile it, and copy and paste the relevant part.

Describe the solution you'd like Add a 'Paste as Bicep' command to the VS Code extension that will convert the clipboard contents from JSON to Bicep and paste it.

I would not expect such a command to result in working Bicep code, e.g. missing vars/parameters are acceptable.

[alex-frankel]

It would be a cool feature, particularly for code snippets we don't own. Though, for all the content we do own, our goal is to provide a bicep equivalent for every JSON snippet/sample.

[aelij]

Nice milestone name :)

[StefanIvemo]

@aelij I've created a PowerShell function that converts JSON to Bicep format, you might find it useful. https://github.com/StefanIvemo/BicepPowerShell/blob/main/Docs/Help/Convert-JsonToBicep.md.

[aelij]

@StefanIvemo Thanks! Will check it out.

[ucheNkadiCode]

This has been mentioned in a few comments since last year. Taking a look at this sort of customer feedback and the fact that Bicep decompile has come up in interviews, is one of our top 5 commands used in Az Bicep CLI. This is worth investing in as we continue to move folks over from ARM to Bicep.

@StephenWeatherford, I'm interested to know, do you believe there is an easy way to detect on someone's clipboard that they are holding ARM text?

After copying ARM text something like this

"resources": [
  {
    "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
    "apiVersion": "2019-04-01",
    "name": "mystorageaccount",
    "location": "westus",
    "sku": {
      "name": "Standard_LRS"
    },
    "kind": "StorageV2",
    "properties": {}
  }
]

I propose the user should be able to right click in a Bicep file and see this:

[StephenWeatherford]

I'm interested to know, do you believe there is an easy way to detect on someone's clipboard that they are holding ARM text?

Yes, with reasonable but not perfect accuracy.

[StephenWeatherford]

Implementation issues and progress

• [x] P1: #9218
• [x] P1: #9219
  • PR almost ready to review: https://github.com/Azure/bicep/pull/9519
• [x] Instability in test: pasteAsBicep should convert pasted list of resources
  • https://github.com/Azure/bicep/actions/runs/3897643094/jobs/6655538552
  • Handled by #9703
• [ ] P1: Don't eat unconverted JSON at end of input
• [x] P1: Sporadic: Internal Error - System.ArgumentException: The specified line number is not valid. (Haven't seen this for a while, does it still repro?)
• [x] #9509
• [x] #9510
• [x] https://github.com/Azure/bicep/issues/9847 See if can create new files in the editor if additional files created (modules from nested templates)
• [x] should only get telemetry when not queryCanPaste
• [x] e2e typescript tests
• [x] review telemetry
• [x] what if resources list is from a subscription scoped template?
• [x] What if the string being pasted is already valid Bicep? Do we convert it (which the user will see as a formatting change) or do we skip the conversion? A: yes
• [ ] Allow brackets missing at end of input

Dev Comments

• I assume we want the following functionality:
  • paste an entire ARM template
  • paste an individual resource or subset of resources
  • paste an object and have double quotes converted to single quotes/etc
  • [ ] What about output from az resource list? (I.e. same as Insert as Resource uses but gets directly from Azure). Example:

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/964df7ca-3ba4-48b6-a695-1ed9db5723f8/resourceGroups/1-77f5bf5b-playground-sandbox/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/untagged-vm/providers/Microsoft.Resources/tags/default",
  "name": "default",
  "properties": {
    "tags": {
      "project": "cloudlinux"
    }
  },
  "resourceGroup": "1-77f5bf5b-playground-sandbox",
  "type": "Microsoft.Resources/tags"
}

Issues

• [x] A big issue will be what missing pieces we can tolerate, e.g.:
  • Missing params and variables shouldn't be a big problem (but will have to make changes - currently the decompiler fails on such inputs)
  • Missing resource references?
  • Missing user-functions
    • Already not supported
• [x] What if it includes a nested template (and thus requires creating additional files)?
• [x] Allow invalid JSON
  • [x] e.g. brackets not closed at end
  • [x] extra brackets
  • [x] comma at end

Examples

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/templates/microsoft.storage/storageaccounts?pivots=deployment-language-arm-template#resource-format-1

[StephenWeatherford]

@aelij @StefanIvemo Please turn on the following options to try this out and give us feedback!

[coolhome]

Just wanted to say this feature is VERY useful when converting NSG JSON to Bicep 🎉

This is a huge quality of life improvement from POV, thank you!

[StephenWeatherford]

@coolhome Great to hear, thanks! BTW, the experimental flag is being removed next release, so it will be default behavior.