Set up your machine once.

The labs build real resources in a real subscription. Signing up gives you three things: a $200 credit that lasts your first 30 days, 12 months of extra free quota on 20+ popular services (new customers only), and 65+ services that stay free forever. Every lab in this course fits inside the always-free tier or costs a few cents, and every lab tears down what it built at the end.

→ Sign up: azure.microsoft.com/free — you end up with a subscription (the billing container everything lives in). It asks for a credit or debit card to verify your identity; Azure does not charge it unless you deliberately move to pay-as-you-go later.

Every lab is written in Bash — the commands use Bash variables, loops, and <<EOF here-docs. Run them in a Bash shell so they work exactly as written:

macOS / Linux   your Terminal is already Bash-compatible — nothing to do.
Windows         install Git (it bundles "Git Bash"), then use Git Bash — not PowerShell:
                  winget install --exact --id Git.Git
              then open Git Bash from the Start menu and work there.

The winget installs below can run from PowerShell, but run the actual lab commands in Git Bash. No Git? WSL or Azure Cloud Shell (bottom of page) are Bash too.

why PowerShell cannot read Bash syntax — NAME="x", $RANDOM, and cat > file <<EOF all fail there. Git Bash, WSL, and Cloud Shell run every lab unchanged.

One Git Bash quirk, already handled: Git Bash rewrites any argument starting with / into a Windows path, which breaks Azure resource IDs (a --scope /subscriptions/… then fails with MissingSubscription). Every lab defuses this with export MSYS_NO_PATHCONV=1 as its first line — leave that line in place and it just works. (On macOS/Linux that line does nothing, so it is safe everywhere.)

The az command every lab uses. One line for your OS.

winget install --exact --id Microsoft.AzureCLI

brew update && brew install azure-cli

curl -sL https://aka.ms/InstallAzureCLIDeb | sudo bash

verify az version -> prints 2.x. Not found? Reopen the terminal so az is on PATH. No winget? MSI at aka.ms/installazurecliwindows.

Opens a browser, then hands control back to the terminal. Set the subscription if you have more than one.

az login
az account show --query name -o tsv                    # which sub am I in?
az account set --subscription "<id-or-name>"            # switch if needed

verify az account show -> prints your subscription as JSON. Signed in.

Skip until a lab asks for it. The Bicep and CLI labs do not need it.

winget install --exact --id Hashicorp.Terraform

brew tap hashicorp/tap && brew install hashicorp/tap/terraform

wget -O- https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/hashicorp-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.releases.hashicorp.com $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hashicorp.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install terraform

verify terraform -version -> Terraform v1.x. Python (AI labs) is preinstalled on macOS/Linux; on Windows: winget install --exact --id Python.Python.3.12.

Before you clone anything: make one folder for all the labs, somewhere you will find again — your home directory or Documents. Note the path. Every lab clones or builds here, so you always know where your work is.

cd ~                          # home (Windows: cd $HOME) — or wherever you'll remember
mkdir azure-labs              # any name you'll recognise later
cd azure-labs
pwd                           # <- note this path. this is home base.

verify pwd prints your folder's full path. Remember it — you will cd back here at the start of every lab, then run its git clone.