Thomas Thornton

Ensuring Terraform State Security with Ephemeral Values and Write-Only Outputs

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In this blog post, I will cover what are ephmeral resources, why write-only arguments should be used and an example both being used in Azure to store and retrieve sensitive values without them being stored in the state file.

Why GitHub Copilot custom instructions matter

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I have been using GitHub Copilot for quite some time now in my IDE, its my daily driver – hopefully you have been doing similar. Have you ever had that moment where GitHub Copilot suggests code and you think, “Hmm, close… but not quite”? Like it almost gets your style, but then throws in a … Read more

Backing Up Home Assistant to Azure Files

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This blog post explains how to set up automated Home Assistant backups using Azure Files. This ensures your smart home configuration is always safe and recoverable. If you’ve ever faced the nightmare of a broken setup with no backups, you will understand the importance of this guide. This guide will provide a secure, scalable, and … Read more

Setting up Trivy in your GitHub Actions

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Have you ever pushed code to production only to lie awake wondering, “Did I just deploy a vulnerability?” You’re not alone. But what if I told you that you can automate security scanning right within your GitHub workflows? I am going to be creating a few upcoming blog posts on various tools that can be … Read more

GitHub Actions Fix ‘Resource Not Accessible by Integration’

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A quick blog post to detail how to fix error Resource Not Accessible by Integration within your GitHub Actions. I came across this initially when trying to upload a .sarf report as part of Trivy scanning. The error In my case, I attempted to upload a SARIF report. This file helps with code scanning. I … Read more

Deploying to Azure: Secure Your GitHub Workflow with OIDC

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OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication for GitHub Actions and Azure deployments is a real game-changer in the world of security. It significantly enhances security when deploying to your Azure environment. In this blog post, I’ll explain why to use OIDC, walk through setting up an Azure AD application with federated credentials using Azure CLI, and demonstrate … Read more

Getting current date and time in Azure Logic Apps using utcnow()

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Using Azure Logic Apps within your environment and wanting to get the current date and time within the Logic App? In this blog post I will show how you can do this with using the function utcNow() What is utcnow() ? utcNow(), as I mentioned above, is a function in Azure Logic Apps. It is … Read more

Autogenerating Terraform Documentation with terraform-docs and GitHub Actions

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Writing a lot of Terraform modules and trying to maintain accurate and up-to-date Terraform documentation becomes increasingly challenging. This is where terraform-docs along with GitHub actions can assist you, they automate the generation of Terraform documentation. In this blog post, I will show you how to use terraform-docs with GitHub Actions. This setup will automatically … Read more

Getting Started Using Terraform Tests with Azure example

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I have written a lot of Terraform over the years and learned the importance of testing Terraform configurations. Testing is often overlooked but is crucial for ensuring the reliability and correctness of your infrastructure code. In this blog post, I will show you how to write Terraform Tests along with an Azure example. Why Test … Read more

Summarising Teams Meeting Transcripts using Open AI and Python

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Time-consuming meeting recordings and extracting key points can be a thing of the past. This Python-based solution uses Azure Open AI to automate the summarisation process for Teams meeting transcripts. The tool efficiently breaks down meetings into five key areas. These areas include Overview, Concerns, and Current Model. It also covers Questions/Thoughts to Address and … Read more