FAQ

Answers to common questions about azure-functions-scaffold and generated projects.

What templates are available?

Five templates are built in:

• http
• timer
• queue
• blob
• servicebus

You can list them at any time:

afs templates

See Templates for behavior and use cases.

How do I add custom templates?

The CLI ships with bundled templates and does not currently provide a runtime plugin command for external template packs.

If you need custom templates today:

1. Fork or clone the project source.
2. Add a new folder under src/azure_functions_scaffold/templates/.
3. Register it in src/azure_functions_scaffold/template_registry.py.
4. Add tests for generation and function-add behavior.

See Template Specification for format rules.

Team strategy

If your organization needs opinionated internal templates, maintain a pinned internal fork and version it like any other developer platform tool.

What is the difference between presets?

Presets control quality tooling in generated project configuration.

Preset	Tooling	Best for
minimal	none	Prototypes, very small scripts
standard	ruff, pytest	Most projects (default)
strict	ruff, mypy, pytest	Type-safe, team-scale APIs

List presets from CLI:

afs presets

Can I use it without Azure Functions Core Tools?

Yes for scaffolding, no for local runtime and deployment.

• You can generate files with afs new, afs api add, and afs advanced add without Core Tools.
• You need Core Tools (func) to run func start locally.
• You typically need Core Tools for func azure functionapp publish ....

How do I add features after project creation?

Feature flags are generation-time options. There is no separate command like afs features enable ... today.

Practical options:

1. Regenerate with desired flags and port business code.
2. Manually add equivalent dependencies and code wiring.

Examples:

• OpenAPI requires route handlers in function_app.py and OpenAPI decorators.
• Validation requires azure-functions-validation, request/response models, and validated endpoint signatures.
• Doctor requires dependency plus command invocation (for example make doctor).

See Configuration for flag behavior.

What are the project naming rules?

Project names must:

• be non-empty
• start with a letter or number
• contain only letters, numbers, hyphens, or underscores

Valid examples:

• my-api
• orders_v2
• api2026

Invalid examples:

• my api
• _api
• api!

Does it create tests?

Yes when pytest tooling is enabled.

• standard and strict presets include pytest and generate tests.
• minimal preset does not include pytest by default.

When adding functions with afs api add or afs advanced add, test files are created if a tests/ directory exists in the project.

Does afs differ from azure-functions-scaffold?

No. afs is a short alias and a drop-in replacement.

These are equivalent:

afs new my-api
azure-functions-scaffold new my-api

Can I preview changes before writing files?

Yes. Use --dry-run on both project creation and add flows.

afs advanced new --preset strict --dry-run my-api
afs advanced add queue process_orders --project-root ./my-api --dry-run

Where should I start next?

• Getting Started
• Configuration
• HTTP API Example
• Troubleshooting

Why is orjson included in generated projects?

All scaffolded projects include orjson as a default dependency. The Azure Functions Python worker automatically detects orjson when it is installed and uses it for JSON serialization and deserialization — no code changes required.

Benchmarks from Microsoft show up to 40% lower HTTP response times and significantly higher throughput for Service Bus and Event Hub triggers. Since orjson provides pre-built wheels for all platforms Azure Functions supports, it adds negligible install overhead for a meaningful performance gain.