DevOps

Updated 3 Feb 2018 - Also see Versioning your ARM templates within a VSTS CI/CD pipeline with Semantic Versioning Azure Resource Templates (ARM) allow your DevOps infrastructure deployments to be treated as ‘content as code’. So infrastructure definitions can be stored in source control. As with any code it is really useful to know which version you have out in production. Now a CI/CD process and its usage logs can help here, but just having a version string stored somewhere accessible on the production systems is always useful....

As part of the continued improvement to my CI/CD process I needed to provide a means so that whenever I test my Generate Release Notes Task, within it’s CI/CD process, new commits and work item associations are made. This is required because the task only picks up new commits and work items since the last successful running of a given build. So if the last release of the task extension was successful then the next set of tests have no associations to go in the release notes, not exactly exercising all the code paths!...

Whist adding a couple of new tasks to my VSTS Manifest Versioning Extension I hit the problem that VSIX package became too big to upload to the Marketplace. The error I saw in my CI/CD VSTS pipeline was``` ##vso[task.logissue type=error;]error: Failed Request: Bad Request(400) - The extension package size ‘23255292 bytes’ exceeds the maximum package size ‘20971520 bytes’ 1. They get a list of files 2. Extract a version number from the build number 3....

In response to requests on the VSTS Marketplace I have added a pair of tasks to added/edit entries in a .JSON format files. The first is for adding a version to a file like a package.json file e.g. { "name": "myapp", "version": "1.0.0", "license": "MIT" } The second is designed for angular environment.ts file e.g. export const environment = { production: true, version: '1.0.0.0' }; But I bet people find other uses, they always do....

In my last post I discussed creating a private VSTS build agent within an Azure DevTest Lab on a VM with no GUI. It was pointed out to me today, by Rik Hepworth, that I had overlooked an obvious alternative way to get the VSTS agent onto the VM i.e. not having to use a series of commands at an RDP connected command prompt. The alternative I missed is to use a DevTest Lab Artifact; in fact there is such an artifact available within the standard set in DevTest Labs....

Updates 28th Nov 2017: Also see this second post Creating a VSTS build agent on an Azure DevLabs Windows Server VM with no GUI - Using Artifacts 30th Nov 2017: Also see associated post Announcing a new VSTS Extension for Starting and Stopping Azure DevTest Labs VMs As I posted recently I have been trying to add more functional tests to the VSTS based release CI/CD pipeline for my VSTS Extensions, and as I noted depending on how you want to run your tests e....

As time passes I have found there is a need for more cross platform VSTS extensions as there is more uptake of VSTS beyond it’s historic Microsoft platform based roots. Historically most of my extensions have been Powershell based. Now this is not a fundamental problem for cross platform usage. this is due to the availability of Powershell Core. However, Typescript and Node.JS is a better fit I think in many cases....

**Updated 22 Mar 2016 **This task is available in the VSTS Marketplace If you are using Pester to unit test your PowerShell code then there is a good chance you will want to include it in your automated build process. To do this, you need to get Pester installed on your build machine. The usual options would be Manual install from GitHub Install via Chocolaty Install via Nuget If you own the build agent VM then any of these options are good, you can even write the NuGet restore into your build process itself....

Updated 22 Mar 2016 This tasks is available in the VSTS Marketplace I have previously posted on how a PowerShell script can be used to run StyleCop as part of vNext VSTS/TFS build. Now I have more experience with vNext tasks it seemed a good time to convert this PowerShell script into a true task that can deploy StyleCop and making it far easier to expose the various parameters StyleCop allows....