Azure Container App Jobs

Azure Container Apps jobs enable you to run containerized tasks that execute for a finite duration and exit. You can use jobs to perform tasks such as data processing, machine learning, or any scenario where on-demand processing is required. Unlike traditional Azure Container Apps that run continuously, Container App Jobs are designed for batch processing, scheduled tasks, and event-driven workloads.

Aspire provides support for Azure Container App Jobs through the PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob extension method, allowing you to deploy your .NET projects, containers, and executables as jobs in Azure Container Apps.

Prerequisites

Azure subscription.
Aspire project.
Understanding of Azure Container Apps jobs.

Supported resource types

Aspire allows you to publish the following resource types as Azure Container App Jobs:

ContainerResource: Represents a specified container.
ExecutableResource: Represents a specified executable process.
ProjectResource: Represents a specified .NET project.

Publishing as Azure Container App Jobs

To publish resources as Azure Container App Jobs, use the following APIs:

PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob<T>(IResourceBuilder<T>);
PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob<T>(IResourceBuilder<T>, Action<AzureResourceInfrastructure, ContainerAppJob>);
PublishAsScheduledAzureContainerAppJob<T>(IResourceBuilder<T>, string, Action<AzureResourceInfrastructure, ContainerAppJob>);

Basic usage

The following example demonstrates how to configure a .NET project as an Azure Container App Job with a scheduled trigger:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder();
  
builder.AddProject<Projects.DataProcessor>("data-processor")
    .PublishAsScheduledAzureContainerAppJob("0 0 * * *"); // Every day at midnight

This code:

Creates a new distributed application builder.
Adds a project named data-processor to the builder.
Calls PublishAsScheduledAzureContainerAppJob to configure the project as a Container App Job.
Sets the trigger type to Schedule with a cron expression to run daily at midnight.

Job trigger types

Azure Container App Jobs support different trigger types:

Manual trigger

Use manual triggers for on-demand job execution:

builder.AddProject<Projects.ManualTask>("manual-task")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Manual;
    });

Schedule trigger

Use schedule triggers for time-based job execution:

builder.AddProject<Projects.ScheduledTask>("scheduled-task")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Schedule;
        job.Configuration.ScheduleTriggerConfig.CronExpression = "0 */6 * * *"; // Every 6 hours
        job.Configuration.ScheduleTriggerConfig.Parallelism = 1;
        job.Configuration.ScheduleTriggerConfig.ReplicaCompletionCount = 1;
    });

Event trigger

Use event triggers for reactive job execution based on external events:

builder.AddProject<Projects.EventDrivenTask>("event-task")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Event;
        job.Configuration.EventTriggerConfig.Scale.MinExecutions = 1;
        job.Configuration.EventTriggerConfig.Scale.MaxExecutions = 10;
        job.Configuration.EventTriggerConfig.Parallelism = 1;
        job.Configuration.EventTriggerConfig.ReplicaCompletionCount = 1;
    });

Advanced configuration

Setting resource requirements

Configure CPU and memory resources for your job:

builder.AddProject<Projects.ResourceIntensiveTask>("intensive-task")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Manual;
        job.Template.Containers[0].Value!.Resources.Cpu = 1.0;
        job.Template.Containers[0].Value!.Resources.Memory = "2Gi";
    });

Environment variables

Add environment variables to your job:

var connectionString = builder.AddParameter("connectionString");
  
builder.AddProject<Projects.DatabaseTask>("db-task")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((infra, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Manual;
        job.Template.Containers[0].Value!.Env.Add(new ContainerAppEnvironmentVariable
        {
            Name = "ConnectionString",
            Value = connectionString.AsProvisioningParameter(infra)
        });
    });

Timeout and retry policy

Configure job execution timeout and retry behavior:

builder.AddProject<Projects.RetryableTask>("retryable-task")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Manual;
        job.Configuration.ReplicaTimeout = 1800; // 30 minutes
        job.Configuration.ReplicaRetryLimit = 3;
    });

Container resources

You can also publish container resources as Azure Container App Jobs:

builder.AddContainer("batch-processor", "myregistry.azurecr.io/batch-processor:latest")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Schedule;
        job.Configuration.ScheduleTriggerConfig.CronExpression = "0 2 * * 0"; // Weekly on Sunday at 2 AM
    });

Executable resources

Executable resources can also be published as jobs:

builder.AddExecutable("data-script", "python", ".", "process_data.py")
    .PublishAsAzureContainerAppJob((_, job) =>
    {
        job.Configuration.TriggerType = ContainerAppJobTriggerType.Manual;
    });

Experimental feature notice

Important

Azure Container App Jobs support in Aspire is an experimental feature. The APIs are subject to change in future releases. You might encounter the diagnostic ASPIREAZURE002 when using these features. For more information, see ASPIREAZURE002.