GitHub supports defining a repository as a template. This enables you to configure a repository, its contents, and its branches quickly. But it can do more…

GitHub Actions Workflows can provide a great abstraction layer for creating or orchestrating build and release processes. Since we’re running code – in some cases, from third-parties – it’s important to understand how to secure the environment from malicious Actions. This is where permissions can help.

The support for custom features in Dev Containers is a huge improvement to the process of customizing images quickly and easily. The convenience and simplicity can have a cost – performance. Trying to customize a container using a feature recently, I struggled with an incredibly long build time. This is how I improved the process.

Continuing with the discussion of mastering Azure, it’s time to understand how the Azure VM SKU families are named. Most people don’t realize that each letter is actually associated with a mnemonic that is designed to make it easy to identify the ideal workload. In addition, the complete SKU name is designed to tell you key details about the VM capabilities in a way that’s easy to remember.

While I was at VS Live Nashville, I heard the same question multiple times: if you’re new to Azure, how do you get started? There are nearly 300 different services, and the numbers continue to grow. That’s a lot to try to understand without a roadmap. I have a few suggestions to make the learning process more manageable …