Azure Function deployment slow

Question

We're finding that a deployment of our Azure Function (AFRv1 / Node.JS) is taking a really long time (15-25 minutes). The cause of this is clearly the number of files in node_modules, but I feel like there must be a better way around this that I haven't looked at.

We deploy the application and node_modules (pre-yarn-installed) as a zip package using the Azure App Service Deploy VSTS task.

Is there an optimised way of deployment using an archive that doesn't take such a long time? Perhaps something that is better at differential deployments?

Answer 1

Yes, you can do two things to reduce deployment time (and cold start time too):

1. Bundle your node modules with WebPack, have a look at Azure Functions Pack tool.

and/or

2. Use Run from Package deployment.