It always amazes me that people find time to write tech books whilst having a full time job. So given the effort I know it will have been, it is great to see an update to Tarun Arora and Utkarsh Sigihalli’s book ‘Azure DevOps Server 2019 Cookbook’. I do like their format of ‘recipes’ that walk through common requirements. I find it particularly interesting that for virtually each recipes there is an associated Azure DevOps Extension that enhances the experience....

I recently hit a problem with builds triggered by branch policies in Azure DevOps Repos. With the help of Microsoft I found out the problem and I thought it worth writing up uncase others hit the issue. Setup Folders Assume you have a Git repo with source for the UI, backend Services and common code in sub folders / [root] UI Services Common Branch Policies On the Master branch there are a policies of running...

I have been trying to use Regex to select a block of an XML based .NET Core CSPROJ file, and yes before you say know I could use XPATH, but why am not is another story. I was trying to use the Regex content.match(/<PropertyGroup>((.|n)\*)</PropertyGroup>/gmi) The strange thing was this selection string worked in online Regex testers and in online Javascript IDEs, but failed inside my Node based Azure DevOps Pipeline extension....

I have spent too long recently trying to sign a UWP .MSIXBUNDLE generated from an Azure DevOps build using the SignTool.exe and our code signing certificate. I kept getting the error Done Adding Additional Store Error information: "Error: SignerSign() failed." (-2146958839/0x80080209) From past experience, SignTool errors are usually due to the publisher details in the XML manifest files (in this case unpack the bundle with MakeAppx.exe and look in AppxMetadataAppxBundleManifest.xml, and also check the manifest in the bundled ....

Introduction I use Azure DevOps Pipelines for the build and release of my Azure DevOps Pipeline extensions, I previously detailed my process here . For a good few months now YAML builds have been available. These provide the key advantage that the build is defined in a YAML text file that is stored with your product’s source code, thus allowing you to more easily track build changes. Also bulk editing becomes easier as a simple text editor can be used....