Previously successful bicep deployment of Microsoft.Insights/scheduledQueryRules failed with vague error

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Previously successful bicep deployment of Microsoft.Insights/scheduledQueryRules failed with vague error

Rachel Weber 65 Microsoft Employee

We have a bicep template for a Microsoft.Insights/scheduledQueryRules rule that has succeeded in the past. When we did a deployed to the same rg/subscription recently with no changes to the template, we got the error:
"ADX reference is of incorrect format: . The request had some invalid properties"

Additional context:

The query starts 'arg("").aksresources'
This is a government cloud if that makes a difference

Any guidance on why the deployment failed would be helpful, and it would be helpful if a bit more context could be included in the error message itself.

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Answer 1

Siva shunmugam Nadessin 9,625 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hello Rachel Weber,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

The failure occurs because the alert rule uses an Azure Resource Graph query (arg("")) that is interpreted as an ADX-style reference during validation. In Azure Government cloud, support for cross-resource queries in scheduledQueryRules is more limited and stricter than in commercial Azure, and non-standard tables (such as aksresources) are not recognized by the query validation engine. As a result, the deployment fails with the error “ADX reference is of incorrect format,” even though the query may still run successfully in Log Analytics.

Your issue is NOT Bicep — it’s query validation + Gov cloud limitations on ARG/ADX usage inside alert rules Let me know if you have further questions?

Rachel Weber 65 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-04-21T23:49:51.97+00:00

Thanks for the response, do you know why the same bicep deployment previously succeeded a few times?

Also, does that mean that the query will work if we turn off validation, or can we just not have this alert in gov regions?
Siva shunmugam Nadessin 9,625 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-21T23:58:37.4266667+00:00

Hello Rachel Weber,

The deployment succeeded previously because Azure Monitor’s query validation was more permissive at the time. A recent backend change has introduced stricter validation for cross-resource (ARG/ADX) queries in scheduledQueryRules, causing the same query to now fail with “ADX reference is of incorrect format,” particularly in Azure Government cloud where support for these query patterns is more limited.

This is more of a platform behavior change.

If the answer was helpful, kindly & up-vote this can be beneficial to other community members.
Rachel Weber 65 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2026-04-22T00:02:03.22+00:00

Thanks, I will press accept answer, but I would like to suggest that the error message could be improved a bit :) As is, it's pretty confusing to end-users, especially when the strict validation is new behavior.
Siva shunmugam Nadessin 9,625 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-22T00:04:58.99+00:00

ok Rachel Weber

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Previously successful bicep deployment of Microsoft.Insights/scheduledQueryRules failed with vague error

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