Installing Azure CLI — Scott McGrath

The Azure CLI (az) is the command line tool for managing Azure resources. It works the same way across Windows, macOS and Linux, so once it’s installed the commands themselves are identical no matter which machine you’re on.

Current version at the time of writing is 2.89.0. Run az version after installing to confirm what you’ve got, and az upgrade any time to update in place.

Windows

The easiest option is WinGet, which ships with Windows 11 and most current Windows 10 installs. Run this from PowerShell or Command Prompt:

powershell

winget install --exact --id Microsoft.AzureCLI

If you don’t have WinGet, download the 64-bit MSI installer instead and run it directly.

Either way, close and reopen your terminal once the install finishes. The az command won’t be on your PATH until you do.

macOS

Installed via Homebrew:

bash

brew update && brew install azure-cli

If you don’t already have Homebrew, install that first.

Linux

For Debian and Ubuntu, there’s a one-line install script maintained by the Azure CLI team:

bash

curl -fsSL 'https://azurecliprod.blob.core.windows.net/$root/deb_install.sh' | sudo bash

Worth opening the script in a browser first if you want to see what it’s doing before piping it into sudo bash.

For Fedora, RHEL or CentOS:

bash

sudo rpm --import https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc
sudo dnf install -y https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/9.0/packages-microsoft-prod.rpm
sudo dnf install azure-cli

Other distributions (openSUSE, Azure Linux and so on) each have their own package manager steps, covered in Microsoft’s Linux install docs.

Verify it’s working

Once installed, on any platform:

bash

az version
az login

az login opens a browser window to sign you into Azure. Once you’re signed in, az account show confirms which subscription you’re pointed at.

Installing the VS Code extension

The Azure CLI Tools extension adds IntelliSense, inline docs and syntax highlighting for .azcli files, so you get command and parameter completion as you type instead of hopping to the docs every time.

Install it from the Extensions view in VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X), search for “Azure CLI Tools”, and install the one published by Microsoft. Or from the command line, if you’ve got the code CLI set up:

bash

code --install-extension ms-vscode.azurecli

Azure CLI Tools extension running in VS Code

Official docs

Microsoft’s own install guide covers every platform and edge case in more detail than I have here: Install the Azure CLI.