Get Build Artifacts from Azure DevOps Microsoft-hosted Build Pipeline - azure-devops

Question

I have quite a bit of experience with Azure DevOps on-premise and know where the build artifacts are stored when I run a build pipeline. However, we are moving to Microsoft-hosted build agents, and won't have any on-prem build server to store the artifacts from the build.
My question is, how do I get the build artifacts created from a build pipeline processed by a Microsoft-hosted build agent? Ultimately, I would like to download those artifacts to a file share that we have on-prem. Is this something that can be done?
I created a build pipeline in Azure DevOps (not on-prem) and ran the build. I added the marketplace extension Publish Build Artifact to the build pipeline and I expected that an artifact would be published so that I could download it to our company server. No artifact was produced.

Answer 1

In Azure yaml based pipelines, you can either use the pipeline artifacts method in this the artifacts are stored and associated with the pipeline or the universal method required additional steps to setup that uses the internal feed to store the artifacts. For pipeline artifacts you necessarily don't need to version the artifact since it is contained inside the pipeline. For universal unless you are overwriting the artifact you need to uniquely version them by any version mechanism you want to use, either to leverage off from app source code versioning or your own custom versioning.. like timestamp etc.
Below is an example of an dot. net build with both publish methods done in yaml pipeline.
# To run and store your build
- task: DotNetCoreCLI#2
displayName: "Build Project"
enabled: true
inputs:
command: "build"
projects: $(SolutionPath)
arguments: "--configuration Release --output $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)"
# Here we start the postbuild steps
# This is to archive the build artifacts, stored by file number.
- task: ArchiveFiles#2
displayName: "Archive Artifacts"
inputs:
rootFolderOrFile: "$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)"
includeRootFolder: false
archiveType: "zip"
archiveFile: "$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/$(Build.BuildId).zip"
replaceExistingArchive: true
# This is to publish the artifact inside the pipeline, stored by file number.
- task: PublishBuildArtifacts#1
displayName: "Publish Artifacts"
inputs:
PathtoPublish: "$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/$(Build.BuildId).zip"
ArtifactName: "drop"
publishLocation: "Container"
# This is to publish the artifact inside the universal artifacts feeds, stored by date/timestamp variable passed below as filename from another step.
- task: UniversalPackages#0
inputs:
command: 'publish'
publishDirectory: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
feedsToUsePublish: 'internal'
vstsFeedPublish: 'your feed'
vstsFeedPackagePublish: 'azure-pipeline-dotnetapi'
versionOption: 'custom'
versionPublish: '$(setBuildValues.ApplicationVersion)'
packagePublishDescription: '$(setBuildValues.appVersion)'
For download of artifacts to a path you can use the below task and pass your network location as the path for download, i am not sure if it can use UNC paths might have to map the network path.
steps:
- task: DownloadBuildArtifacts#1
displayName: 'Download Build Artifacts'
inputs:
buildType: "current"
downloadType: "single"
downloadPath: ${{ parameters.DownloadPath }} #INSERT YOUR DOWNLOAD PATH HERE.