During the recent Ignite conference, Microsoft announced the general availability (GA) of .NET Framework Custom Code for Azure Logic Apps (standard), which allows developers to extend their low-code solutions with custom code.
Earlier, the company previewed custom code capability, and with the GA release, developers can now benefit from more flexibility with code, deploy code alongside the workflows, and have local debug experience. In addition, the company included support for local logging and Application Insights.
The company advises developers to use .NET Framework custom code extensibility to complement their low code integration solutions in cases like custom parsing, data validation, and simple data transformations – not for compute-heavy scenarios like streaming, long-running code, and complex batching or debatching.
The custom code feature is available from within VS Code by clicking on the Azure 'A' and then clicking on the Logic Apps logo, followed by Create new logic app workspace. When developers do that, they will subsequently be prompted for some additional information, such as the name of their workspace, function name, namespace, etc. Next, a sample C# project and workflow project will be provisioned to allow developers to get started.
Kent Weare, a Principal Program Manager for Logic Apps at Microsoft, told InfoQ:
We have invested in an onboarding wizard to help developers get started quickly. Our expectation is that a developer should be able to run a workflow that calls custom code within minutes of launching VS Code.
Workspace with a Functions project that includes a sample function (Source: Tech community blog post)
Currently, the support is still .NET Framework 4.7.2, however, according to a Tech community blog post, the company is actively working on building in support for .NET 6. When asked about the other .NET Frameworks, Weare said:
We will be investing in support for other frameworks. We wanted to get the .NET Framework capability to GA first, and now that we have done so, we will explore other framework versions.
In addition, Piers Coleman, an Azure Solution and Integration Architect at Chevron, commented in a LinkedIn post by Weare:
Finally, Logic Apps now have BizTalk-like capabilities.
Lastly, the documentation pages provide guidance on the .NET Framework Custom Code in Logic Apps Standard.