This folder is for your organization's deployment parameter files and custom artifact packages. It is intentionally excluded from repo updates so your files are never overwritten.

Store customer-owned content under the parameters/ and artifacts/ subfolders:

customer/
  parameters/
    hostpools/
      prod-pooled.hostpool.parameters.json
      dev-pooled.hostpool.parameters.json
    imageBuild/
      win11-m365.imageBuild.parameters.json
    imageManagement/
      prod.imageManagement.parameters.json
    keyVaults/
      prod.keyVaults.parameters.json
    networking/
      prod.networking.parameters.json
  artifacts/
    Chrome/
      Install-Chrome.ps1
      GoogleChromeEnterpriseBundle64.msi

Sample files to use as starting points are in each deployment's parameters/ folder. Copy them into the matching child folder under customer/parameters/ before customizing them:

• deployments/hostpools/parameters/
• deployments/imageBuild/parameters/
• deployments/imageManagement/parameters/
• deployments/keyVaults/parameters/
• deployments/networking/parameters/

Put your artifact packages in customer/artifacts/. deployments/Update-ImageArtifacts.ps1 stages .common/artifacts/ first (currently empty, reserved for future repo-provided packages) then overlays customer/artifacts/ on top — your files always win when names match.

Ready-to-use example artifact packages and an optional downloads file are provided under customer-examples/. These are not used automatically — copy what you need into the matching customer/ subfolders and remove or modify entries you don't want.

customer-examples/
  artifacts/                                ← copy folders into customer/artifacts/
    Adobe-Acrobat-Reader-DC/
    Amazon-Workspaces-Client/
    BuiltIn-UWP-Apps/
    Configure-DesktopBackground/
    Configure-EdgePolicy/
    Configure-Office365Policy/
    Configure-OneDriveKFMPolicy/
    Configure-RemoteDesktopPolicy/
    Configure-WindowsUpdatePolicy/
    DoD-InstallRoot/
    DoD-STIGs/
    Git-for-Windows/
    Google-Chrome-Enterprise/
    LGPO/
    Microsoft-AzCLI/
    Microsoft-FSLogix/
    Microsoft-Power-BI-Desktop/
    Microsoft-PowerShell-7/
    Microsoft-VSCode/
    Notepad-PlusPlus/
    PuTTY/
  parameters/
    imageManagement/
      downloads.json                        ← copy to customer/parameters/imageManagement/downloads.json

Copying examples to your customer folder:

# Copy a specific artifact package
Copy-Item -Recurse -Path "customer-examples\artifacts\Google-Chrome-Enterprise" `
          -Destination "customer\artifacts\"

# Copy all example artifact packages at once
Copy-Item -Recurse -Path "customer-examples\artifacts\*" -Destination "customer\artifacts\"

# Copy the optional downloads file
Copy-Item -Path "customer-examples\parameters\imageManagement\downloads.json" `
          -Destination "customer\parameters\imageManagement\" -Force

Each artifact folder in customer-examples/artifacts/ pairs with an entry in customer-examples/parameters/imageManagement/downloads.json — the DestinationFolders field in each download entry names the artifact folder the downloaded installer is placed into before the script zips and uploads it.

If you keep customer content outside the extracted repo zip, pass -CustomerRootPath to Update-ImageArtifacts.ps1, Deploy-ImageManagement.ps1, or Invoke-ImageBuilds.ps1 so they read from your external customer folder instead of the repo-local customer/ tree.

The customer/ tree is excluded from git tracking by the root .gitignore (only README.md and .gitkeep placeholder files are committed). This prevents customer-specific values — subscription IDs, resource group names, storage account names, and installer binaries — from being accidentally committed back to the upstream repo.

How you track your own changes depends on your workflow:

Keep FederalAVD as an upstream source you never commit to. Maintain your parameter files and artifact packages in a separate git repository at a different path (e.g., C:\repos\FederalAVD-Config). Point all scripts at it using -CustomerRootPath:

.\Update-ImageArtifacts.ps1 `
    -StorageAccountName "<name>" `
    -ResourceGroupName "<rg>" `
    -CustomerRootPath "C:\repos\FederalAVD-Config"

.\Deploy-ImageManagement.ps1 `
    -CustomerRootPath "C:\repos\FederalAVD-Config"

.\Invoke-ImageBuilds.ps1 `
    -CustomerRootPath "C:\repos\FederalAVD-Config"

The scripts expect <CustomerRootPath>\artifacts\ and <CustomerRootPath>\parameters\ as the customer content locations — mirror the structure of this customer/ folder.

Why this is the recommended approach:

• Your customer content has its own clean git history, branching, and pull request workflow
• FederalAVD framework updates (git pull or robocopy) never touch your content
• No gitignore rules to manage or override
• Works naturally with pipelines: check out both repos independently, pass -CustomerRootPath as a pipeline variable

If you have forked FederalAVD into your own GitHub organization or Azure DevOps project and want to track customer/ content in the same repository, remove the customer/ block from the root .gitignore:

# Remove or comment out these lines in .gitignore to start tracking customer/ content:
# customer/artifacts/**
# !customer/artifacts/**/
# ...

Your fork can then commit parameter files and artifact scripts normally. When pulling upstream changes from Azure/FederalAVD, watch for .gitignore conflicts — the upstream file will re-add the ignore rules and you will need to resolve the conflict in your favor each time.

If you manage parameter files out-of-band (a pipeline that injects them, a secrets manager, or a shared file server), the default .gitignore behavior is fine — just run the scripts directly against this folder and ignore git for the customer tree.

If you are working directly from the Azure/FederalAVD repository:

git -C C:\repos\FederalAVD pull

The customer/ folder is gitignored from the perspective of the upstream repo, so a pull will never overwrite your files. If you have forked the repo, pull from the upstream remote:

git -C C:\repos\FederalAVD remote add upstream https://github.com/Azure/FederalAVD
git -C C:\repos\FederalAVD fetch upstream
git -C C:\repos\FederalAVD merge upstream/main

If you received FederalAVD as a ZIP or file share copy rather than a git clone, use robocopy to pull the latest code while preserving this folder:

robocopy \\source\FederalAVD C:\FederalAVD /mir /xd customer

The /xd customer flag excludes this folder from the mirror operation, so your parameter files and custom artifact packages are never deleted or overwritten by a repo update.