Quickstart: Create a policy assignment to identify non-compliant resources with REST API

Article
04/03/2025

The first step in understanding compliance in Azure is to identify the status of your resources. In this quickstart, you create a policy assignment to identify non-compliant resources using REST API. The policy is assigned to a resource group and audits virtual machines that don't use managed disks. After you create the policy assignment, you identify non-compliant virtual machines.

This guide uses REST API to create a policy assignment and to identify non-compliant resources in your Azure environment. The examples in this article use PowerShell and the Azure CLI az rest commands. You can also run the az rest commands from a Bash shell like Git Bash.

When assigning a built-in policy or initiative definition, it's optional to reference a version. Policy assignments of built-in definitions default to the latest version and automatically inherit minor version changes unless otherwise specified.

Prerequisites

If you don't have an Azure account, create a trial account before you begin.
Latest version of PowerShell or a Bash shell like Git Bash.
Latest version of Azure CLI.
Visual Studio Code.
A resource group with at least one virtual machine that doesn't use managed disks.

Review the REST API syntax

There are two elements to run REST API commands: the REST API URI and the request body. For information, go to Policy Assignments - Create.

The following example shows the REST API URI syntax to create a policy definition.

PUT https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/{scope}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/{policyAssignmentName}?api-version=2023-04-01

scope: A scope determines which resources or group of resources the policy assignment gets enforced on. It could range from a management group to an individual resource. Replace {scope} with one of the following patterns:
- Management group: /providers/Microsoft.Management/managementGroups/{managementGroup}
- Subscription: /subscriptions/{subscriptionId}
- Resource group: /subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}
- Resource: /subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/{resourceProviderNamespace}/[{parentResourcePath}/]{resourceType}/{resourceName}
policyAssignmentName: Creates the policy assignment name for your assignment. The name is included in the policy assignment's policyAssignmentId property.

The following example is the JSON to create a request body file.

{
  "properties": {
    "displayName": "",
    "description": "",
    "policyDefinitionId": "/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111",
    "nonComplianceMessages": [
      {
        "message": ""
      }
    ]
  }
}

displayName: Display name for the policy assignment.
description: Can be used to add context about the policy assignment.
policyDefinitionId: The policy definition ID that to create the assignment.
nonComplianceMessages: Set the message to use when a resource is evaluated as non-compliant. For more information, see assignment non-compliance messages.

Connect to Azure

From a Visual Studio Code terminal session, connect to Azure. If you have more than one subscription, run the commands to set context to your subscription. Replace <subscriptionID> with your Azure subscription ID.

az login

# Run these commands if you have multiple subscriptions
az account list --output table
az account set --subscription <subscriptionID>

Use az login even if you're using PowerShell because the examples use Azure CLI az rest commands.

Create a policy assignment

In this example, you create a policy assignment and assign the Audit VMs that do not use managed disks definition.

A request body is needed to create the assignment. Save the following JSON in a file named request-body.json.

{
  "properties": {
    "displayName": "Audit VM managed disks",
    "description": "Policy assignment to resource group scope created with REST API",
    "policyDefinitionId": "/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyDefinitions/06a78e20-9358-41c9-923c-fb736d382a4d",
    "nonComplianceMessages": [
      {
        "message": "Virtual machines should use managed disks"
      }
    ]
  }
}

To create your policy assignment in an existing resource group scope, use the following REST API URI with a file for the request body. Replace {subscriptionId} and {resourceGroupName} with your values. The command displays JSON output in your shell.

az rest --method put --uri https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/audit-vm-managed-disks?api-version=2023-04-01 --body `@request-body.json

In PowerShell, the backtick (`) is needed to escape the at sign (@) to specify a filename. In a Bash shell like Git Bash, omit the backtick.

For information, go to Policy Assignments - Create.

Identify non-compliant resources

The compliance state for a new policy assignment takes a few minutes to become active and provide results about the policy's state. You use REST API to display the non-compliant resources for this policy assignment and the output is in JSON.

To identify non-compliant resources, run the following command. Replace {subscriptionId} and {resourceGroupName} with your values used when you created the policy assignment.

az rest --method post --uri https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.PolicyInsights/policyStates/latest/queryResults?api-version=2019-10-01 --uri-parameters `$filter="complianceState eq 'NonCompliant' and PolicyAssignmentName eq 'audit-vm-managed-disks'"

The filter queries for resources that are evaluated as non-compliant with the policy definition named audit-vm-managed-disks that you created with the policy assignment. Again, notice the backtick is used to escape the dollar sign ($) in the filter. For a Bash client, a backslash (\) is a common escape character.

Your results resemble the following example:

{
  "@odata.context": "https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.PolicyInsights/policyStates/$metadata#latest",
  "@odata.count": 1,
  "@odata.nextLink": null,
  "value": [
    {
      "@odata.context": "https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.PolicyInsights/policyStates/$metadata#latest/$entity",
      "@odata.id": null,
      "complianceReasonCode": "",
      "complianceState": "NonCompliant",
      "effectiveParameters": "",
      "isCompliant": false,
      "managementGroupIds": "",
      "policyAssignmentId": "/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourcegroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/microsoft.authorization/policyassignments/audit-vm-managed-disks",
      "policyAssignmentName": "audit-vm-managed-disks",
      "policyAssignmentOwner": "tbd",
      "policyAssignmentParameters": "",
      "policyAssignmentScope": "/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}",
      "policyAssignmentVersion": "",
      "policyDefinitionAction": "audit",
      "policyDefinitionCategory": "tbd",
      "policyDefinitionGroupNames": [
        ""
      ],
      "policyDefinitionId": "/providers/microsoft.authorization/policydefinitions/06a78e20-9358-41c9-923c-fb736d382a4d",
      "policyDefinitionName": "06a78e20-9358-41c9-923c-fb736d382a4d",
      "policyDefinitionReferenceId": "",
      "policyDefinitionVersion": "1.0.0",
      "policySetDefinitionCategory": "",
      "policySetDefinitionId": "",
      "policySetDefinitionName": "",
      "policySetDefinitionOwner": "",
      "policySetDefinitionParameters": "",
      "policySetDefinitionVersion": "",
      "resourceGroup": "{resourceGroupName}",
      "resourceId": "/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourcegroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/microsoft.compute/virtualmachines/{vmName}>",
      "resourceLocation": "chinanorth3",
      "resourceTags": "tbd",
      "resourceType": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines",
      "subscriptionId": "{subscriptionId}",
      "timestamp": "2024-03-26T02:19:28.3720191Z"
    }
  ]
}

For more information, go to Policy States - List Query Results For Resource Group.

Clean up resources

To remove the policy assignment, use the following command. Replace {subscriptionId} and {resourceGroupName} with your values used when you created the policy assignment. The command displays JSON output in your shell.

az rest --method delete --uri https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/audit-vm-managed-disks?api-version=2023-04-01

You can verify the policy assignment was deleted with the following command. A message is displayed in your shell.

az rest --method get --uri https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/policyAssignments/audit-vm-managed-disks?api-version=2023-04-01

The policy assignment 'audit-vm-managed-disks' is not found.

For more information, go to Policy Assignments - Delete and Policy Assignments - Get.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you assigned a policy definition to identify non-compliant resources in your Azure environment.

To learn more about how to assign policies that validate resource compliance, continue to the tutorial.

Tutorial: Create and manage policies to enforce compliance