Azure API Management: How to configure your APIOps process to filter the extract of Groups

Yesterday, we published a blog post explaining how to control which version sets the extractor pipeline retrieves. We achieved this by configuring the version set filter in the extractor YAML file.

However, the extractor pipeline also processes another resource by default: groups. It extracts all group values even though official documentation does not mention this behavior. You can find these group settings in your API Management instance under Developer portal > Groups.

Once again, the APIOps configuration file acts as a YAML‑based filter. It controls which Azure API Management artifacts the pipeline extracts into your Git repository. Teams can use this file to selectively extract APIs, products, backends, and other APIM elements. This approach lets them manage different areas of their API landscape independently.

However, the example YAML file included in the repository is slightly outdated. It does not include all the properties that the extractor currently supports.

Right now, these are the only options that are shown in the official GitHub: https://github.com/Azure/apiops.

After running the extract pipeline, you’ll notice that all Group settings appear in a folder named groups inside your repository. Later, the pipeline deploys this folder to other environments. However, I don’t want to extract groups in every project or API. Instead, I may want to isolate this configuration.

Once again, the documentation does not define groups as a variable in the configuration file. Fortunately, the example YAML file on GitHub is outdated. To fix this, we only need to add the missing variable to the configuration file.

 groupNames:
  - ignore

Note:

• You cannot leave it empty. Otherwise, it is the same as not having the groupNames section, and that basically says to the extractor to get all the data of the groups.
• To discard the fetch of the groups, you need to put a dummy string inside the groupNames section.
  • I like to use the ignore string.
• If you want a specific group, you add the group name in the groupNames section.

If, for example, we don’t want to extract any group, then we add the following code:

After extracting, we get our final result and eliminate any group info in the repo (the groups will still be present in the API Management):

Hope you find this helpful! If you enjoyed the content or found it useful and wish to support our efforts to create more, you can contribute towards purchasing a Star Wars Lego for my son!

Author: Sandro Pereira

Sandro Pereira lives in Portugal and works as a consultant at DevScope. In the past years, he has been working on implementing Integration scenarios both on-premises and cloud for various clients, each with different scenarios from a technical point of view, size, and criticality, using Microsoft Azure, Microsoft BizTalk Server and different technologies like AS2, EDI, RosettaNet, SAP, TIBCO etc. He is a regular blogger, international speaker, and technical reviewer of several BizTalk books all focused on Integration. He is also the author of the book “BizTalk Mapping Patterns & Best Practices”. He has been awarded MVP since 2011 for his contributions to the integration community. View all posts by Sandro Pereira