Azure Account extension will be deprecated in January 2025

[alexweininger]

⚠️ The Azure Account extension for VS Code will be deprecated in January 2025.

Deprecating a VS Code extension means that we will no longer be providing support or bug fixes for the extension and that it will show as deprecated in the VS Code marketplace. Extensions need to migrate to the VS Code built-in Microsoft authentication provider, and remove Azure Account as a dependency before the end of January 2025.

Extension users

Users should not expect any interruptions to their workflows. Many Azure extensions have already migrated away from Azure Account onto the newer built-in Microsoft authentication provider in preparation for its deprecation. We expect the remaining extensions to do so before January 2025.

Azure Cloud Shell

The Azure Cloud Shell in VS Code feature will maintain the same entry points and behavior, however it will now live in the Azure Resources extension. The feature now handles authentication via the Microsoft authentication provider, which means you may have to login upon first launch of the migrated feature.

Extension authors

We ask extension authors that depend on the Azure Account extension for authentication to migrate to the new provider before it's deprecated. Once you do so, make sure to remove the Azure Account extension from the extension dependencies in the package.json.

To assist in migrating off of the Azure Account extension, we've created a wrapper npm package around the VS Code built-in Microsoft authentication provider. It's not required to use our npm package, but it should make the migration easier for most extensions. My team and I can provide support through the migration process.

The AKS extension has already migrated, and had a tougher migration because they used tree items that were tied to the Azure Account extension. Their migration can be used as an example. Azure/vscode-aks-tools#551

For extensions that rely on Azure Account solely for listing subscriptions, you can just swap out Azure Account with the auth package.

Plug in to the Azure Resources API

For extensions that have their own tree view that show Azure subscriptions and resources, instead of migrating to the built-in authentication provider, we recommend you leverage the Azure Resources API. We've built this API to allow Azure extensions to contribute to a set of centralized VS Code views. Please reach out to us if you think your extension is a good candidate for the Azure Resources API.

A great example of an extension migrating onto the Azure Resources API is the Azure Spring Apps extension: microsoft/vscode-azurespringcloud#49

UX Changes for Extensions

Since each extension is now handling their own authentication through the VS Code API. Users will now have to grant each extension access to authentication.

Other than that, the UX changes are mostly around signing in and signing out. See the release notes from the Azure Resources migration for details.