[Feature Request]: transparent support for Azure CLI authentication

[romanpolunin]

Feature Description

I would like MSSQL extension to seamlessly support authentication context established by the az login command, instead of popping up more online authentication dialogs or code-driven auth. In .NET SQL client, DefaultAzureCredential supports existing Azure CLI creds already.

We use a lot of command line automation with SQL Servers in Azure, and "current" identity is seamlessly applied to a lot of services such as sqlpackage CLI, Azure Devops, AppConfig, Azure Storage, and others.

CLI-based login also helps with logging in as a service principal.

Problem and Motivation

Currently, the UI for Azure integrated authentication with MFA is very frequently broken (way too frequent popups) or causes long unexplainable freezes while navigating many DB-related UIs: query editor, stored connections, schema comparison. I am also being forced to re-authenticate at random times, and it's next to impossible to switch to a different database when using the query editor toolbar in VSCode.

Related Area

• Connection dialog (SQL Server | Azure browse/Fabric browse)
• Query results panel
• Query editor
• Object Explorer
• Table Designer
• Schema Compare
• Schema Designer
• Local SQL Server Container provisioning
• SQL database in Fabric provisioning
• GitHub Copilot integration
• Query Plan Visualizer
• Other (please describe below)

If you selected "Other", please describe the area

No response

Confirmation

• I have searched existing feature requests and couldn't find a match
• I want to help implement this feature

[kburtram]

@Benjin what do you think of this suggestion? It sounds reasonable, but I suspect it would require a significant change to our current authentication stack.

[Benjin]

I like this suggestion; if it works as described, it would allow us a relatively easy way to support the remainder of AAD/Entra auth types by having the CLI + driver handle that transparently.