Release updated tools version *before* rolling out to live Azure

Yesterday an updated version of the functions runtime (v3.0.14191.0) started to roll out across Azure (starting in East US region. It caused an issue with some of our services (we are doing some funky stuff with dependency injection) and caused our functions to fail to start entirely.

We were able to get a fix rolled out, but it was very hard to find the issue because the local tools are still on the older version. Thus we had no way to emulate the Azure environment accurately to reproduce the issue.

Is there a way to get the core tools (even a preview version) *before* the changes roll out to Azure and affect production systems?

Start by reviewing how the core tools versions are released in relation to Azure Functions runtime rollouts. Trace the path from an updated runtime version to the local tools release, then define a process that makes the tools available before production rollout. Done means the local tools can emulate the affected Azure environment ahead of live deployment.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.