conditional ManualValidation step in Azure DevOps pipeline - azure-devops

Question

Using the Azure DevOps ManualValidation task, can the job run conditionally, based on variables defined earlier in the pipeline?
The job accepts an enabled parameter, but it seems this must be hard-coded to true or false.
- stage: Approve_${{ targetPath.stageName }}_${{ parameters.planEnvironment }}
jobs:
- job: waitForValidation
displayName: Wait for external validation
pool: server
timeoutInMinutes: ${{ parameters.timeoutInMinutes }}
steps:
- task: ManualValidation#0
environment: development ## environment not accepted here
#enabled: $[destroy] ## Unexpected value '$[destroy]'",
#enabled: $(destroy) ## fails - syntax error (does not like this to be a var)
# manually setting true/false works
#enabled: true
#enabled: false
inputs:
notifyUsers: |
alert#test.com
instructions: 'Please validate the build configuration and resume'
onTimeout: 'reject'

Answer 1

enabled control option is boolean type, which means whether or not to run this step, defaults to 'true'. If you want to use enabled control option to condition ManualValidation step, you could check the following syntax:
variables:
- name: destroy
value: true
jobs:
- job: waitForValidation
displayName: Wait for external validation
pool: server
timeoutInMinutes: 4320 # job times out in 3 days
steps:
- task: ManualValidation#0
timeoutInMinutes: 1440 # task times out in 1 day
enabled: ${{ variables.destroy }}
inputs:
notifyUsers: |
test#test.com
example#example.com
instructions: 'Please validate the build configuration and resume'
onTimeout: 'resume'
Otherwise can specify the conditions under the steps as #Shayki Abramczyk mentioned.

Answer 2

You can use a custom condition like in every task:
- task: ManualIntervention#8
inputs:
instructions: 'test'
condition: and(succeeded(), eq(variables['VariableName'], 'VariableValue'))

Answer 3

Another option is to use template parameter conditionals to make the stage, job, or task go away when you don't want it there. That is, when the preprocessing is done on the pipeline code, use conditionals to avoid inserting the item into the expanded yaml file that is actually run when the pipeline runs.
- ${{ if ne(parameters.EnvironmentName, 'Dev') }}:
- stage: Approve_${{ targetPath.stageName }}_${{ parameters.planEnvironment }}
jobs:
- job: waitForValidation
displayName: Wait for external validation
pool: server
timeoutInMinutes: ${{ parameters.timeoutInMinutes }}
steps:
- task: ManualValidation#0
environment: development ## environment not accepted here
inputs:
notifyUsers: |
alert#test.com
instructions: 'Please validate the build configuration and resume'
onTimeout: 'reject'
This above example is using a pipeline template parameter named EnvironmentName. You have the ability to use some variables, as explained in Azure DevOps's Predefined variables documentation (see the "Available in templates?" table column).
Note that any subsequent stages that refer to this stage (or job, if you put the condition on the job) via the dependsOn functionality will also need to make that dependsOn disappear with the same logic.
More info at the Conditional Insertion official documentation.