AIS Runner: A Desktop GUI for Local Azure Logic Apps Standard Development

Developing Azure Logic Apps Standard locally usually means juggling the CLI, VS Code extensions, the Azure portal, DevOps pipelines, and a handful of terminals to inspect Service Bus queues or compare environment settings. AIS Runner brings all of that into a single Dioxus-based desktop app — a visual GUI to manage, run, debug, and compare workflows without leaving your dev environment.

It runs natively on macOS, Windows, and Linux via Dioxus desktop (WebView).

🔧 Local Development Environment

• Auto-detection of prerequisites — checks for Node.js, Azure Functions Core Tools, .NET, and Java runtimes, and guides setup
• Project workspace management — link local Logic Apps projects to their Azure counterparts (subscription, resource group, app name, Service Bus namespace)
• local.settings.json editor — visual key/value editor with secret masking, grouped by category (Service Bus, connection strings, etc.)
• System theme support — auto-detects dark/light OS preference with manual toggle

▶️ Workflow Execution

• Run workflows locally with trigger-aware execution (HTTP, Service Bus, Blob triggers)
• Payload editor — compose and send JSON payloads to trigger workflows
• Service Bus message injection — send messages to queues via AMQP, auto-detecting local emulator vs cloud namespace
• Blob trigger support — pre-flight checks for Azurite container existence
• Run history viewer — inspect individual run details, inputs/outputs per action

📊 Workflow Visualization

• Workflow list with trigger type indicators and status
• Visual graph panel — DAG rendering of workflow action dependencies
• Workflow analysis — detects all referenced queues, connections, and actions per workflow
• Connection diagnostics — validates connections.json references and flags broken @appsetting bindings

☁️ Azure Cloud Integration

• Azure panel — list remote workflows, diff local vs deployed definitions
• Sync & deploy — compare local workflow JSON with Azure-deployed versions
• Download remote configs — pull parameters.json and connections.json from Azure
• Run history from Azure — fetch execution history for deployed workflows
• az login integration — detects expired tokens and prompts re-authentication

🔄 Azure DevOps Integration

• Pipeline viewer — list and browse DevOps pipelines for the linked project
• Auto-detect DevOps URL from the git remote
• Variable group browser — list all DevOps variable groups and inspect their contents

⊞ Compare Environments

• Multi-column environment comparison — compare local.settings.json against Azure cloud app settings and multiple DevOps variable groups side-by-side
• Diff filtering — toggle "Differences only" with per-column checkboxes to compare any subset of environments
• Secret masking — hides sensitive keys with a reveal toggle
• Click-to-copy cells with clipboard integration and detail popup

⚡ Event Grid

• Topic browser — lists all custom and system Event Grid topics subscription-wide, with resource group badges
• Subscription inspector — expand any topic to see event subscriptions with endpoint type, filters, and event types
• Topic comparison — two-dropdown side-by-side compare of Event Grid topics between environments, highlighting differences in subscriptions and filters

🚌 Service Bus

• Queue detection — scans all workflow triggers and actions to discover referenced Service Bus queues
• Emulator management — Docker-based Service Bus emulator with auto-config generation
• Queue browser (DB panel) — inspect queue message counts, dead-letter queues, send test messages
• Cross-environment queue comparison — compare queues between DEV/STG/PROD namespaces with property diff (session, max delivery, lock duration, TTL, auto-delete)
• DLQ and active message badges in the comparison view

💾 Data Connectors (DB Panel)

• SQL — connection management for SQL Server databases referenced by workflows
• Cosmos DB — browse and manage Cosmos DB connections
• Blob Storage / Azurite — local Azurite emulator integration, container management, WebJobs storage config
• SFTP — SFTP connection viewer for file-based integrations
• Maps — Logic Apps maps (XSLT/Liquid transforms) management

🖥️ UX

• Resizable split pane — draggable divider between workflow list and detail panel
• Persistent configuration — workspace links, graph preferences, and settings saved across sessions
• Keyboard shortcuts — Escape to close overlays
• Cross-platform — runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux via Dioxus desktop (WebView)

Why a Native Desktop App?

Building AIS Runner with Dioxus in Rust gives it the responsiveness of a native app with a modern UI layer. No Electron-sized memory footprint, no browser tab to lose. It sits next to your editor and your terminal, talks to your local emulators directly, and authenticates to Azure with the same az CLI session you already use.

If you work with Logic Apps Standard daily, AIS Runner is built to remove the friction between writing a workflow, running it locally, comparing it across environments, and shipping it.