Required .azurefunctions directory is not created when publishing from a GitHub workflow on an ubuntu runner

[rellis-of-rhindleton]

This is similar to issue 741. That was closed because the op couldn't reproduce it later, but it's a current issue for me.

When dotnet publish runs on my computer, the publish output contains a folder named .azurefunctions, but when the same commands are run on an ubuntu GitHub runner, that folder is missing. I haven't noticed any other differences. In both cases there is a file named extensions.json which contains references to the .azurefunctions folder, so it seems like the folder is expected to be there.

Deploying the app from my computer's build (which has that folder) runs fine in Azure. Deploying the one built on the GitHub runner (which does not) gets "No job functions found. Try making your job classes and methods public" errors, and the app doesn't work.

The project is an isolated process function app for .NET 7. In both cases I'm using the .NET SDK version 7.0.100.

I'm happy to provide any logs or other diagnostics.

[fabiocav]

Thanks for reporting this, @rellis-of-rhindleton, the folder is indeed required, and its absence will lead to the error you've mentioned.

The information you've shared above is clear and we'll take a closer look to see what is going on with the build process.

Can you confirm what OS you're using when you build locally?

[rellis-of-rhindleton]

For local development I'm using Windows 11 Enterprise, version 21H2.

Here are some specs for the Ubuntu GitHub runner:

.NET 7 is being installed using actions/setup-dotnet@v3. The DOTNET_INSTALL_DIR environment variable is set to ./.dotnet, as a workaround for some permission problems. This is a workaround that was recommended in another issue.

Output of dotnet --info (some values redacted):

.NET SDK:
 Version:   7.0.101
 Commit:    bb24aafa11

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     ubuntu
 OS Version:  20.04
 OS Platform: Linux
 RID:         ubuntu.20.04-x64
 Base Path:   WORKSPACE_DIR/REPO_NAME/.dotnet/sdk/7.0.101/
              
Host:
  Version:      7.0.1
  Architecture: x64
  Commit:       97203d38ba

.NET SDKs installed:
  7.0.101 [WORKSPACE_DIR/REPO_NAME/.dotnet/sdk]

.NET runtimes installed:
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 7.0.1 [WORKSPACE_DIR/REPO_NAME/.dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 7.0.1 [WORKSPACE_DIR/REPO_NAME/.dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App]

Other architectures found:
  None

Environment variables:
  DOTNET_ROOT       [WORKSPACE_DIR/REPO_NAME/.dotnet]

global.json file:
  Not found

The build command:

dotnet publish PROJECT.csproj -c Release -r linux-x64 --no-self-contained -o publish

I've tried using other locations for publish output but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

[berhir]

We are facing the same issue when building our function with Azure Pipelines using the ubuntu-22.04 runner image. It works fine when I change the build definition to use a Windows runner image.

There are at least two differences in the generated output. On Linux, the .azurefunctions folder is missing and there is of course no .exe file.

Using a Windows runner is ok for us as a temporary solution, but the build of our whole project takes twice the time on Windows compared to Linux. So I hope you can find a solution and we can switch back to using a Linux runner soon.

[daniellittledev]

I can also reproduce the issue:

This command is run both locally and on the build agent.

dotnet publish . --configuration Release --output "../output/func" --runtime win10-x86 --self-contained false

The only difference is my local build env is Windows and the build server is Linux.

After analysing the outputs of the two environments, the .azurefunctions is missing in the build server output.

Versions:
runs-on: Ubuntu 22.0
dotnet version: 6.0.x

[daniellittledev]

I think I've tracked down my issue, which is the .azurefunctions folder does get generated. However, it is not in the .zip artifact.

In my case this is because I was using Compress-Archive to generate the artifact. Which works correctly on windows, however on linux these are interpreted as hidden files and are not added to the archive. This results in an invalid az function when deployed.

Also see:
PowerShell/Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive#66

[fabricciotc]

Yes, you've correctly identified the issue. The problem lies in using Compress-Archive to generate the artifact. While it works correctly on Windows, on Linux, files and folders starting with a dot (such as the .azurefunctions folder) are considered hidden files and are not automatically added to the archive. As a result, when you deploy the artifact, the missing .azurefunctions folder leads to an invalid Azure Function.

To address this, you can modify your approach by explicitly including the .azurefunctions folder in the archive creation process. One possible solution is to use the Get-ChildItem command to retrieve all files and folders, including hidden ones, and then pass them to Compress-Archive for compression.

One possible solution is to use the following code:

Get-ChildItem -Path ./azurefunction-release -Force | Compress-Archive -DestinationPath ./output

[skotl]

Apologies for barging in but for info I've had the same problem with a GitLab CD pipeline.
Issue is described as above and 24 hours of banging my head against the wall and googling landed me here!

As @fabricciotc suggested, the solution for me was to force include .azurefunctions in the zip command:

zip -r /deploy.zip * .azurefunctions

The symptom for me was that the function app started but no functions were listed. A push deploy from Rider worked, but the CD pipeline did not. Hope this helps other people who may stumble upon this too.

[leroibeukes]

Apologies for barging in but for info I've had the same problem with a GitLab CD pipeline. Issue is described as above and 24 hours of banging my head against the wall and googling landed me here!

As @fabricciotc suggested, the solution for me was to force include .azurefunctions in the zip command:

zip -r /deploy.zip * .azurefunctions

The symptom for me was that the function app started but no functions were listed. A push deploy from Rider worked, but the CD pipeline did not. Hope this helps other people who may stumble upon this too.

After lots of googling - this is the answer!

Our CI/CD pipeline runs on a linux agent and this folder (.azurefunctions) is excluded from the generated zip file intermittently. (have to run the pipeline more than once for it to appear).

[rellis-of-rhindleton]

So it appears the issue is not with the deployment, but with the zip command and an OS convention. Perhaps this should just be a documentation enhancement?