App Configuration Strategy 

Azure App configuration overview 

• Creates a centralized repository of configuration key-value pairs. 
• Configuration values can have labels assigned, which allows filtering by consuming applications 
  • Currently using for “production” vs “staging” values. 
• Allows creation of Key Vault references 
• Forwards a link to the Key Vault secret to the consuming application 
  • Consuming application must be authorized to access the key vault; App Config does not directly access it. 
• Use Azure Managed Identity 

Configuration Value Locations 

• Guidelines for where certain types of configuration values should live: 
  • Key Vault
    • Service URLs 
    • API Keys 
    • Other secrets 
• Environment Variables 
  • App Environment 
  • App Config URI 
  • Identifier Prefixes 
• Azure App Configuration 
  • Everything else 

Backend Global Config Keys 

• Creation of a Configuration NuGet package is planned. Commonly used configuration keys may get a dedicated property within the configuration class. 
  • Initial properties will be related to Service URLs and Keys, as well as connection strings. 

Naming conventions 

• PascalCase 
  • Use everywhere 
• {Name}.App.{Key} 
  • Used in Azure App Config for application specific values 
  • Example: Products.App.DbConnectionString 

• {Name}.Service.{Key} 
  • Used in Azure App Config for service specific values 
  • Example: FileStatus.Service.Url

• {Name}.Special.{Key} 
  • Used in Azure App Config for values that may be used in multiple places, but you don’t necessarily want caught in the standard filter. Individual apps may add these as needed. 
  • Example: Research.Special.DbConnectionString 
    • This is used in multiple applications, but we don’t necessarily want it in ALL applications. 
• Add tags to keys that describe their use cases, e.g. connection string, api key.