fix: WAF aligned changes merge from dev to main

[Roopan-Microsoft]

Purpose

This pull request introduces several improvements to authentication and environment configuration for Azure services in the backend batch utilities. The main theme is the consistent use of managed identity credentials (via MANAGED_IDENTITY_CLIENT_ID and MANAGED_IDENTITY_RESOURCE_ID) for secure, centralized authentication, replacing direct credential usage. Additionally, there are updates to workflow files and environment variable handling to support these changes.

Authentication and Managed Identity Improvements:

• Updated all Azure service clients (CosmosDB, Blob Storage, Form Recognizer, Computer Vision, Azure Search, MLClient, PostgreSQL, etc.) to use get_azure_credential(self.env_helper.MANAGED_IDENTITY_CLIENT_ID) for authentication, ensuring consistent use of managed identity across the codebase. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
• Added support for user-assigned managed identity in Azure Search Data Source and Index creation, using SearchIndexerDataUserAssignedIdentity and MANAGED_IDENTITY_RESOURCE_ID, except in the dev environment. [1] [2] [3]

Environment Configuration and Secret Management:

• Enhanced EnvHelper to load MANAGED_IDENTITY_CLIENT_ID, MANAGED_IDENTITY_RESOURCE_ID, and APP_ENV from environment variables, and improved secret retrieval for FUNCTION_KEY using Key Vault. Also added validation for Key Vault endpoint presence when enabled. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Workflow and CI/CD Updates:

• Changed Docker image tags and cache references in workflow files to use latest_waf instead of latest for main branch builds, and improved tagging consistency. [1] [2]
• Updated package installation in the group_dependabot_security_updates.yml workflow to use manual apt-get commands instead of the cache action.

Other Backend Utility Changes:

• Modified PostgreSQL connection logic to use SSL as a boolean and include sslmode=require in connection strings for enhanced security. [1] [2]
• Refactored PostgresConversationClient to use EnvHelper for managed identity client ID retrieval. [1] [2] [3]

These changes strengthen security, centralize credential management, and improve maintainability for Azure service integrations.hunk://#diff-81b1c856302e9d3a8a9a8a1e5e23cae887bf7c060168ad67fe31409c4abdb6ceR31-R38)

Build Configuration

• Updated TypeScript configuration to use Node 16 module and resolution settings for compatibility with newer Node.js features.

Does this introduce a breaking change?

• Yes
• No

How to Test

• Get the code

git clone [repo-address]
cd [repo-name]
git checkout [branch-name]
npm install

• Test the code

What to Check

Verify that the following are valid

• Verify end to end functionality from deployment to functional testing.

Other Information

[github-actions]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.16.0 🎉

The release is available on GitHub release

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀