chore: improve CI/CD workflows, automate dependency updates, and enforce linting standards

[Harmanpreet-Microsoft]

Purpose

This pull request introduces several improvements to CI/CD automation, code quality enforcement, and configuration management for the project. The main changes include the addition of robust Azure deployment and cleanup workflows, automated dependency updates, and stricter Python linting configuration. Minor code formatting and typing adjustments are also included.

CI/CD Automation and Infrastructure:

• Added a comprehensive GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/ci.yml) for validating Azure deployments, handling resource group creation/deletion, quota checks, soft deletion and purging of AI services and Key Vaults, and sending notifications on failures. This streamlines and automates the deployment lifecycle.
• Introduced a Bash script (scripts/checkquota.sh) to programmatically validate Azure Cognitive Services quota across multiple regions, ensuring deployments only proceed when sufficient resources are available.

Dependency and Code Quality Management:

• Added a Dependabot configuration (.github/dependabot.yml) to automate grouped dependency updates for npm, pip, and GitHub Actions, improving security and maintainability.
• Implemented a Python linting workflow (.github/workflows/pylint.yml) using Flake8, with custom configuration to enforce code style and catch errors in the codebase.
• Added a .flake8 configuration file to specify linting rules, ignored errors, and excluded directories for consistent code quality checks.

Minor Codebase Improvements:

• Applied minor formatting and typing fixes in backend Python files to improve code readability and maintainability (src/backend-api/src/app/libs/application/application_configuration.py, src/backend-api/src/app/libs/base/fastapi_protocol.py, src/backend-api/src/app/libs/models/messages.py, src/backend-api/src/app/libs/repositories/file_repository.py). [1] [2] [3] [4]
• ...

Does this introduce a breaking change?

• Yes
• No

Golden Path Validation

• I have tested the primary workflows (the "golden path") to ensure they function correctly without errors.

Deployment Validation

• I have validated the deployment process successfully and all services are running as expected with this change.

What to Check

Verify that the following are valid

• ...

Other Information

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR introduces comprehensive CI/CD automation improvements including Azure deployment workflows, dependency management, and code quality enforcement. The main focus is on infrastructure automation with minor code formatting adjustments to meet linting standards.

• Added GitHub Actions workflows for Azure deployment validation and Python linting
• Implemented Dependabot configuration for automated dependency updates across npm, pip, and GitHub Actions
• Applied code formatting fixes to comply with Flake8 linting standards

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 26 out of 29 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
.github/workflows/ci.yml	Azure deployment validation workflow with quota checks and cleanup
.github/workflows/pylint.yml	Python linting workflow using Flake8
.github/dependabot.yml	Automated dependency update configuration
.flake8	Flake8 linting configuration file
scripts/checkquota.sh	Azure quota validation script
Multiple Python files	Code formatting fixes for linting compliance

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[github-actions]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.0.0 🎉

The release is available on GitHub release

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