How to debug a Time Trigger Azure Function Locally

Very often I have to develop timer triggered Azure Function with C#.
To optimize the development time, of course, it is not possible to wait every time the timer (especially if the timer is every morning at 7:00AM 🙂).

Let's see how we cannot waste our time waiting the trigger but launch an Azure Function time triggered instantly.

Solution

The default method of an Azure Function has a parameter called "RunOnStartup" hidden by default.
If you want to run the Azure Function at the startup, set it to true and launch the debug session again.

[FunctionName("Function1")]
public void Run([TimerTrigger("0 */5 * * * *", RunOnStartup = true)]TimerInfo myTimer, ILogger log)
{
    log.LogInformation($"C# Timer trigger function executed at: {DateTime.Now}");
}

By the way, in this case the function will be launched also in the production environment when you restart the Azure Function or when you deploy a new version of the function.
To prevent that, you can use the conditional compilation directive in the function method.

#if DEBUG
     RunOnStartup= true
#endif

Below you can find the full code with the compilation directive for the debug exception.

[FunctionName("Function1")]
public void Run([TimerTrigger("0 */5 * * * *", 
#if DEBUG
     RunOnStartup= true
#endif    
)]TimerInfo myTimer, ILogger log)
{
    log.LogInformation($"C# Timer trigger function executed at: {DateTime.Now}");
}

That's all folks!
Happy debugging. 🦸