Build multiple projects/repositories with one build definition VSTS - azure-devops

I am using VSTS for my OPA5 Tests, so all works for one project. For this I created a Build for these Projects i wanted to test.
But if I want to test all projects, do I need to create a build for all Project or is there a solution to build all projects with one build definition?
The build should do always the same things, saved in a YAML File.
I have seen thats is possible to do builds with difficult branches but not with difficult repositories.
So has anyone a solution for this or is it impossible at the moment?

Yes, it's possible.
You just need to clone another git repositories at the beginning of the build.
So you can add a PowerShell task as the first task and execute git clone command.
And If you are using YAML file, just add the script to execute the PowerShell task.
Besides, you can also refer the post VSTS build from multiple repositories.

Related

Azure DevOps Release Pipeline - How to get the source code that was used to create the build artifact?

I have a continuously triggered Azure DevOps release definition that deploys a compiled Angular app to a web server and also runs Cypress e2e tests. The Cypress tests must run against the source code, so that means I need an artifact that is able to reference the same commit that was used to create the compiled app.
I created a GitHub artifact that gets the source code, but I can't figure out how to automatically change the branch/commit to whatever was used for the compiled app (it could be any branch and the names are not known ahead of time). Azure forces me to enter a hard-coded branch name and it does not accept wildcards or variables.
If I could simply use the variable ${Release.Artifacts.{alias}.SourceBranchName} for the default branch, I think I'd achieve my goal. Since Azure doesn't allow this, is there an alternative approach that accomplishes the same thing?
Note 1: The "Default version" dropdown has an option "Specify at the time of release creation", but that is intended for manual releases and can't be used for triggered ones, so no luck there.
Note 2: I looked into publishing the source code as an artifact, but it currently has almost 70,000 files and it adds more than an hour to the build step, so that also is not an option.
When you use the Release Pipeline artifacts, you are not able to set the pipeline variable in the Default branch field. This field only supports hard-coded.
is there an alternative approach that accomplishes the same thing?
The variable:$(Release.Artifacts.{alias}.SourceBranchName) can be used in the Release Pipeline agent job.
Workaround:
You can remove the Github artifacts and then add a Command Line task/PowerShell task/ Bash task to run the git command to clone the target repo.
For example:
git clone -b $(Release.Artifacts.{alias}.SourceBranchName) GithubRepoURL
PowerShell sample:
In this case, the script will use the same branch as Build Artifacts to checkout the source code.

Is there a way in an ADO Build Pipeline to only build one of the artifacts?

I have an ADO build pipeline that builds three artifacts. However, while I am developing, I only want one of the artifacts to be built since that is the artifact on which I am working and it takes longer for all of them to build and I don't want to wait. Can I disable the other artifacts from building?
As I know, you could not use UI to disable some of artifacts which build from one build pipeline. Because we does not provide this feature in VSTS now.
But as workaround, you can use Copy File task in your release to achieve this.
Specify the artifact what you want to work with in release pipeline, and copy it from File A(the source file where these build artifacts is) to File B(any file you want). And then, you can do other thing with this specific build.
Hope this could help -)

Reusing PowerShell Scripts in Azure DevOps

I have a PowerShell script that I want to re-use across multiple build pipelines. My question is, is there a way I can "store" or "save" my PowerShell script at the project or organization scope so that I can use it in my other build pipelines? If so, how? I can't seem to find a way to do this. It would be super handy though.
It is now possible to check out multiple repositories in one YAML pipeline. You could place your script in one repository and check it out in a pipeline of any other repository. You could then reference the script directly on the pipeline workspace.
More info here.
Depending on how big theese scripts are you can create Taskgroups that contain powershell-tasks with the script as inline-powershell. But this only works on project-scope..
Another attempt i'd try would be to create a repo containing your powershell-scripts, add this repo as submodule in the repository you are trying to build and then call the scripts from the submodule-folder. But this only works when using git-repos.
Or you could create a custom build-task that contains your script.
From what I have seen, no.
A few different options I have explored are:
If using a non-hosted agent, saving the file onto the build server. Admittedly this doesn't scale well, but it is better than copy/pasting the script all over. I was able to put these scripts into version control and deploy them via their own pipeline so that might be an solution for scaling (if necessary)
Cloning another repository that has these shared scripts during the process.
I've been asking for this feature for a bit, but it seems the Azure DevOps team has higher priorities.
How about putting the powershell in a nuget package and install that in depending projects?
I just discovered YAML templates (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/process/templates?view=azdevops#step-re-use).
I think it may help you in this case (depending how large it is your file), you can put an inline powershell script in that template yaml, and reuse it on your main yaml.
Documentation is pretty straightforward.

Share the same Powershell script file between multiple repo/Build

We are using VSTS for CI and CD in my team, we got over 40 repositories which are separated projects. but all of them have to run the same PowerShell script in one of their Build steps.
the PowerShell file is bigger too big to be kept as the inline script, so we need to save it inside a file. obviously, I got a copy of the PowerShell file in each repository.
Problem:
Now whenever I need to update the script, then I end up to update it in every repository, which is over 40 at the moment.
I think there should be a better approach. Is there any way that I can put my script in one single repo (a repo dedicated to holding the script) then I use it within each build, therefore we I need to update it I only need to update it once.
There are a few options.
My general recommendation is to publish the script as a package (NuGet or otherwise) and restore it during your application builds. This allows consumers to stay "pinned" to a known-good, known-working version, and update on a schedule that works for them.
Another option is to add a submodule to each repository that requires the script dependency, then initialize the submodule during the build process.
A third option is to turn the shared script into a VSTS build task or extension. This is extensively documented and easily located so I won't belabor the point by including instructions for doing that here.
You can add a git repository to store your powershell file.
Then add a build step to get you file from that repository during build and use it.

How to publish artifacts separately for each project in solution from VSTS CI pipeline?

In my solution, I have two projects (a Asp.net MVC and a Windows Service). I want to create CI/CD pipeline to deploy web application and windows service on different VMs. But to achieve this my CI pipeline should be able to publish artifacts separately for both project and then I can feed these artifacts in CD pipeline for deployment. How artifacts for all projects can be published separately in a CI pipeline ?
PS: If I create two solutions each with one project only and create CI/CD pipeline separately, all works fine. But I want to achieve it with solution having multiple project as mentioned above.
You can use multiple, Publish tasks to create multiple artifacts in a single build definition.
For example lets say, you have below, as your current artifacts for a single project, comprising of _PublishedWebsites\MVS5WebApp (XCopy deployable website) and _PublishedWebsites\MVS5WebApp_Package (web deploy package).
If you want to separate these two, into two artifacts, you can use two Publish Artifact tasks as shown below, each one specifying exact path to publish (this path does not support wildcards, you just have to specify the folder you need to publish)
This will give you output as shown below.
In this example I just only used the Publish Artifacts task and created two artifacts using a single web site project. You can do same for your two project scenario. If you want to use wild card to filter more files before publish you can use "Copy File" task multiple times as required.
If you are using '.net core' task in the build pipeline then uncheck the checkbox 'Publish web projects' just after the command textbox.
Then it automatically creates publish artifacts separate for each project in the solution with the same name as each of the project files.
You have multiple ways to achieve that.
You can either create multiple build definitions targeting the project and not the solution in the build step with the proper arguments.
Or you can have one build definition with multiple build steps.
After that on the release side of things you can either leverage one release definition with multiple steps or multiple release definitions.