Getting Started with Azure Static Web Apps

Azure Static Web Apps is a fantastic service that brings together hosting, serverless APIs, and CI/CD in one package. If you’re building a personal site, a documentation portal, or a Jamstack app, it’s hard to beat the developer experience.

Why Azure Static Web Apps?

Here are my top reasons for choosing it:

• Free tier – perfect for personal projects and blogs
• Built-in CI/CD via GitHub Actions
• Global CDN distribution out of the box
• Custom domains with automatic HTTPS
• Preview environments for every pull request

Setting Up Your Hugo Site

First, make sure you have Hugo installed locally. You can grab the latest release from the Hugo releases page.

# Create a new Hugo site
hugo new site my-site

# Navigate into it
cd my-site

# Add a theme
hugo new theme my-theme

Deploying with GitHub Actions

The Azure Static Web Apps GitHub Action handles everything for you. After creating a Static Web App resource in the Azure portal, it will automatically add a workflow file to your repository.

- name: Build And Deploy
  uses: Azure/static-web-apps-deploy@v1
  with:
    azure_static_web_apps_api_token: ${{ secrets.AZURE_STATIC_WEB_APPS_API_TOKEN }}
    repo_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    action: "upload"
    app_location: "/"
    output_location: "public"

Conclusion

Azure Static Web Apps combined with Hugo gives you a blazing-fast, globally distributed site with zero server management. Give it a try!