API Management

Introduction

Azure API Management (APIM) is a managed service for publishing, securing, and analyzing APIs at scale. It acts as a gateway between clients and backend services, providing features such as rate limiting, policy enforcement, authentication, and developer portal integration.

APIM is commonly used to expose internal services as managed APIs, implement API versioning, and monitor API usage across organizations. For more information, see Azure API Management overview.

LocalStack for Azure provides a local environment for building and testing applications that make use of Azure API Management. The supported APIs are available on our API Coverage section, which provides information on the extent of API Management’s integration with LocalStack.

Getting started

This guide walks you through creating an API Management service, adding an API, and defining and updating an operation. It is designed for users new to API Management and assumes basic knowledge of the Azure CLI and our azlocal wrapper script.

Launch LocalStack using your preferred method. For more information, see Introduction to LocalStack for Azure. Once the container is running, enable Azure CLI interception by running:

azlocal start-interception

This command points the az CLI away from the public Azure management REST API and toward the LocalStack for Azure emulator API. To revert this configuration, run:

azlocal stop-interception

This reconfigures the az CLI to send commands to the official Azure management REST API.

Create a resource group

Create a resource group for your API Management resources:

az group create \
  --name rg-apim-demo \
  --location westeurope

Output

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-apim-demo",
  "location": "westeurope",
  "name": "rg-apim-demo",
  "properties": {
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded"
  },
  ...
}

Create an API Management service instance

Create an API Management service in the resource group:

az apim create \
  --name apimdoc86 \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo \
  --location westeurope \
  --sku-name Consumption \
  --publisher-name "LocalStack" \
  --publisher-email "dev@localstack.cloud"

Output

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-apim-demo/providers/Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/apimdoc86",
  "name": "apimdoc86",
  "location": "West Europe",
  "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
  "publisherName": "LocalStack",
  "publisherEmail": "dev@localstack.cloud",
  "gatewayUrl": "https://apimdoc86.azure-api.net",
  "sku": {
    "capacity": 0,
    "name": "Consumption"
  },
  ...
}

Get and list API Management services:

az apim show \
  --name apimdoc86 \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo

Output

{
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-apim-demo/providers/Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/apimdoc86",
  "location": "West Europe",
  "name": "apimdoc86",
  "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
  "publisherEmail": "dev@localstack.cloud",
  "publisherName": "LocalStack",
  "resourceGroup": "rg-apim-demo",
  "sku": { "capacity": 0, "name": "Consumption" },
  "type": "Microsoft.ApiManagement/service"
...
}

az apim list \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo

Output

[
  {
    "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-apim-demo/providers/Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/apimdoc86",
    "name": "apimdoc86",
    "provisioningState": "Succeeded",
    "resourceGroup": "rg-apim-demo",
    "sku": { "capacity": 0, "name": "Consumption" },
    "type": "Microsoft.ApiManagement/service"
  }
]

Check service name availability

Check whether the service name is globally available before creating:

az apim check-name --name apimdoc86

Output

{
  "message": "",
  "nameAvailable": true,
  "reason": "Valid"
}

Create and inspect an API

Create an API in API Management:

az apim api create \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo \
  --service-name apimdoc86 \
  --api-id orders-api \
  --path orders \
  --display-name "Orders API" \
  --protocols https

Output

{
  "displayName": "Orders API",
  "id": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/rg-apim-demo/providers/Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/apimdoc86/apis/orders-api",
  "name": "orders-api",
  "path": "orders",
  "protocols": [
    "https"
  ],
  "subscriptionRequired": true,
  ...
}

Get the API:

az apim api show \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo \
  --service-name apimdoc86 \
  --api-id orders-api

Output

{
  "displayName": "Orders API",
  "name": "orders-api",
  "path": "orders",
  "protocols": [
    "https"
  ],
  ...
}

Create and update an API operation

Create an operation on the API:

az apim api operation create \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo \
  --service-name apimdoc86 \
  --api-id orders-api \
  --operation-id get-orders \
  --display-name "Get orders" \
  --method GET \
  --url-template "/orders"

Output

{
  "displayName": "Get orders",
  "method": "GET",
  "name": "get-orders",
  "type": "Microsoft.ApiManagement/service/apis/operations",
  "urlTemplate": "/orders",
  ...
}

Update the operation and verify the change:

az apim api operation update \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo \
  --service-name apimdoc86 \
  --api-id orders-api \
  --operation-id get-orders \
  --display-name "Get all orders"

az apim api operation show \
  --resource-group rg-apim-demo \
  --service-name apimdoc86 \
  --api-id orders-api \
  --operation-id get-orders

Output

{
  "displayName": "Get all orders",
  "method": "GET",
  "name": "get-orders",
  "urlTemplate": "/orders",
  ...
}

Features

• Full CRUD lifecycle: Create, read, update, and delete APIM service instances.
• API management: Create, read, and delete API definitions within a service.
• API operations: Register and retrieve API operation definitions.
• Backend management: Define and manage backend service configurations.
• API gateway management: Create and manage self-hosted API gateways.
• API policies: Attach XML policy documents to APIs (stored but not evaluated).
• Name availability check: Validate service name uniqueness via the checkNameAvailability action.
• Service listing: List all APIM services in a subscription or resource group.

Limitations

• No gateway proxy: Incoming API calls are not proxied through LocalStack. The APIM gateway does not process requests, apply policies, or forward traffic to backends.
• No policy evaluation: Inbound, outbound, and error policies are stored in the ARM model but are not executed.
• No developer portal: The APIM developer portal and its OAuth/subscription flows are not emulated.
• No subscription keys: API subscriptions and key-based authentication are not enforced.
• No rate limiting or quotas: Throttling, quota, and cache policies have no effect.
• Consumption plan only for creation: SKU differences between Developer, Basic, Standard, Premium, and Consumption tiers are not emulated.

Samples

Explore end-to-end examples in the LocalStack for Azure Samples repository.

API Coverage

Operation ▲	Implemented ▼

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