• Batch File Execute Command
• Batch File Execute Commands Sequentially

• The goal of this post is to trigger a release in VSTS using PowerShell from an external build system. For this example, you will be using Jenkins. I assume you have a working Jenkins installation with a Project that you wish to deploy using Release Management in VSTS. I further assume that your Project includes the Archive the artifacts build step.
• In jenkins job configuration go to build section, click on the add build step there you can select the 'execute the windows batch command ' there give the full qualified path of your batch script.

We use TFS to build our project. When the last projects completes a successful build, we use the post build event for that project to run a batch file.

We recently added a tests project, which runs after the build process completes, which means the batch file fires first after after the last project builds successfully but not after successful test run.

When using batch / PowerShell based builds, MyGet Build Services will scan for batch files to be executed. In addition to the MyGet.bat (or.cmd or.ps1) and build.bat (or.cmd or.ps1), we search for pre- and post-build steps as well. These can be batch scripts or PowerShell scripts that are run before and after the actual.

How do you set up a batch file to run only after successful test completion in TFS?

1 Answer

In TFS 2012 you'll need to edit the build workflow to do this. You need to add an InvokeProcess activity at some point after the workflow runs your tests. See the ALM Ranger Build Guidance for more info on how to customize build workflows: http://vsarbuildguide.codeplex.com/

If you were using TFS 2013 the new TfvcTemplate.12.xaml includes the ability to specify a powershell file to run right from the build definition (no workflow customization required)

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged testingtfsbuildtfs2012tfsbuild or ask your own question.

Azure Pipelines Azure DevOps Server 2019 TFS 2018 TFS 2017 TFS 2015

Note

In Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2018 and previous versions,build and release pipelines are called definitions,service connections are called service endpoints,stages are called environments,and jobs are called phases.

On the Triggers tab, you specify the events that trigger the build. You can use the same build pipeline for both CI and scheduled builds.

CI triggers

Continuous integration (CI) triggers cause a build to run whenever a push is made to the specified branches or a specified tag is pushed.

YAML builds are configured by default with a CI trigger on all branches.

YAML builds are configured by default with a CI trigger on all branches.

Branches

You can control which branches get CI triggers with a simple syntax:

You can specify the full name of the branch (for example, master) or a wildcard (for example, releases/*).See Wildcards for information on the wildcard syntax.Note: you cannot use variables in triggers, as variables are evaluated at runtime (after the trigger has fired).

You can specify branches to include and exclude. For example:

In addition to specifying branch names in the branches lists, you can also configure triggers based on tags by using the following format:

If you don't specify any triggers, the default is as if you wrote:

Important

When you specify a trigger, it replaces the default implicit trigger, and only pushes to branches that are explicitly configured to be included will trigger a pipeline. Includes are processed first, and then excludes are removed from that list. If you specify an exclude but don't specify any includes, nothing will trigger.

Batching CI builds

If you have a lot of team members uploading changes often, you may want to reduce the number of builds you're running.If you set batch to true, when a build is running, the system waits until the build is completed, then queues another build of all changes that have not yet been built.

Batch File Execute Command

Paths

You can specify file paths to include or exclude.Note that the wildcard syntax is different between branches/tags and file paths.

Batch File Execute Commands Sequentially

When you specify paths, you also need to explicitly specify branches to trigger on.

Tags

In addition to specifying tags in the branches lists as covered in the previous section, you can directly specify tags to include or exclude:

If you don't specify any tag triggers, then by default, tags will not trigger pipelines.

Note

If you specify tags in combination with branch filters that include file paths, the trigger will fire if the branch filter is satisfied and either the tag or the path filter is satisfied.

Note

Triggering on tags is not currently supported for Bitbucket Cloud repos.

Opting out of CI builds

Disabling the CI trigger

You can opt out of CI builds entirely by specifying trigger: none.

Important

When you push a change to a branch, the YAML file in that branch is evaluated to determine if a CI build should be run.

For more information, see Triggers in the YAML schema.

Skipping CI for individual commits

You can also tell Azure Pipelines to skip running a pipeline that a commit would normally trigger. Just include ***NO_CI*** in the commit message of the HEAD commit and Azure Pipelines will skip running CI. This is supported for commits to Azure Repos Git and GitHub.

You can also tell Azure Pipelines to skip running a pipeline that a commit would normally trigger. Just include [skip ci] in the commit message or description of the HEAD commit and Azure Pipelines will skip running CI. You can also use any of the variations below. This is supported for commits to Azure Repos Git, Bitbucket Cloud, GitHub, and GitHub Enterprise Server.

• [skip ci] or [ci skip]
• skip-checks: true or skip-checks:true
• [skip azurepipelines] or [azurepipelines skip]
• [skip azpipelines] or [azpipelines skip]
• [skip azp] or [azp skip]
• ***NO_CI***

Select this trigger if you want the build to run whenever someone checks in code.

Batch changes

Select this check box if you have many team members uploading changes often and you want to reduce the number of builds you are running. If you select this option, when a build is running, the system waits until the build is completed and then queues another build of all changes that have not yet been built.

You can batch changes when your code is in Git in the project or on GitHub. This option is not available if your code is in a remote Git repo or in Subversion.

Git filters

If your repository is Git then you can specify the branches where you want to trigger builds. If you want to use wildcard characters, then type the branch specification (for example, features/modules/*) and then press Enter.

Path filters in Azure Pipelines and Team Foundation Services (TFS)

If your Git repo is in Azure Repos or TFS, you can also specify path filters to reduce the set of files that you want to trigger a build.

Tips:

• If you don't set path filters, then the root folder of the repo is implicitly included by default.
• When you add an explicit path filter, the implicit include of the root folder is removed. So make sure to explicitly include all folders that your build needs.
• If you exclude a path, you cannot also include it unless you qualify it to a deeper folder. For example if you exclude /tools then you could include /tools/trigger-runs-on-these
• The order of path filters doesn't matter.

Example

For example, you want your build to be triggered by changes in master and most, but not all, of your feature branches. You also don't want builds to be triggered by changes to files in the tools folder.

Azure Pipelines, TFS 2017.3 and newer

TFVC Include

Select the version control paths you want to include and exclude. In most cases, you should make sure that these filters are consistent with your TFVC mappings on the Repository tab.

CI trigger for a remote Git repo or Subversion

You can also select the CI trigger if your code is in a remote Git repo or Subversion. In this case we poll for changes at a regular interval. For this to work, Azure Pipelines or your Team Foundation Server must be able to resolve the network address of the service or server where your code is stored. For example if there's a firewall blocking the connection, then the CI trigger won't work.

PR triggers

Pull request (PR) triggers cause a build to run whenever a pull request is opened with one of the specified target branches,or when changes are pushed to such a pull request.

Important

YAML PR triggers are only supported in GitHub and Bitbucket Cloud. If you are using Azure Repos Git, you can configure a branch policy for build validation in order to trigger your build pipeline for validation.

Note

New pipelines automatically override YAML PR triggers with a setting in the UI.To opt into YAML-based control, you need to disable this setting on the Triggers tab in the UI.

Important

YAML PR triggers are only supported in GitHub. If you are using Azure Repos Git, you can configure a branch policy for build validation in order to trigger your build pipeline for validation.

You can specify the target branches for your pull request builds.For example, to run pull request builds only for source branches in a PR thattarget master and releases/*, you can use the following pr trigger.This configuration triggers a build upon creation of any pull request where the target branchis set to the master or releases/* branches.The pipeline also triggers once with any commit coming into the source branch when the target branchis set to be master or releases/*, while the pull request is active.

PR triggers will fire for these branches once the pipeline YAML file has reached that branch.For example, if you add master in a topic branch, PRs to master will not start automatically building.When the changes from the topic branch are merged into master, then the trigger will be fully configured.

If no pr triggers appear in your YAML file, pull request builds are automatically enabled for allbranches, as if you wrote the following pr trigger. This configuration triggers a build when anypull request is created, and when commits come into the source branch of any active pull request.

Important

When you specify a pr trigger, it replaces the default implicit pr trigger, and only pushes to branches that are explicitly configured to be included will trigger a pipeline. Includes are processed first, and then excludes are removed from that list. If you specify an exclude but don't specify any includes, nothing will trigger.

You can specify the full name of the branch (for example, master) or a wildcard (for example, releases/*).See Wildcards for information on the wildcard syntax.

You can specify branches to include and exclude. For example:

You can specify file paths to include or exclude. For example:

Note that the wildcard syntax is different between branches/tags and file paths.

You can specify whether additional pushes to a PR should cancel in-progress runs for the same PR. The default is true.

You can opt out of pull request builds entirely by specifying pr: none.

Important

When you create a pull request, or push a change to the source branch of a PR, the YAML file in the source branch is evaluated to determine if a PR build should be run.

For more information, see PR trigger in the YAML schema.

GitHub, GitHub Enterprise Server, Subversion, and Bitbucket Cloud

Select the Pull request validation trigger and check the Enable pull request validation check box to enable builds on pull requests.

You can specify branches to include and exclude.Select a branch name from the drop-down menu and select Include or Exclude as appropriate.For included branches, a build will be triggered on each push to a pull request targeting that branch.

For GitHub repos, you can choose whether or not to build pull requests from forks. There are security implications to enabling this feature that you should understand before selecting it.If you choose to build fork pull requests, you may also choose whether or not to expose secrets (like secret variables and secure files) to fork pull request builds.

Azure Repos Git

If your Git repo is hosted in Azure Repos, there won't be a Pull request validation trigger on the Triggers page. To enable pull request validation in Azure Git Repos, navigate to the branch policies for the desired branch, and configure the Build validation policy for that branch. For more information, see Configure branch policies.

Other Git

Pull request triggers are not available for Other/external Git repos.

Trigger builds using GitHub pull request comments

If your team uses GitHub pull requests, you can manually trigger pipelines using pull request comments. See details here.

Scheduled triggers

Important

Scheduled triggers defined using the pipeline settings UI take precedence over YAML scheduled triggers.

If your YAML pipeline has both YAML scheduled triggers and UI defined scheduled triggers,only the UI defined scheduled triggers are run.To run the YAML defined scheduled triggers in your YAML pipeline,you must remove the scheduled triggers defined in the pipeline setting UI.Once all UI scheduled triggers are removed, a push must be made in order for the YAMLscheduled triggers to start running.

Scheduled triggers cause a build to run on a schedule defined using cron syntax.

In the following example, two schedules are defined.

The first schedule, Daily midnight build, runs a pipeline at midnight every day, but only if the code has changed since the last run, for master and all releases/* branches, except those under releases/ancient/*.

The second schedule, Weekly Sunday build, runs a pipeline at noon on Sundays, whether the code has changed or not since the last run, for all releases/* branches.

Note

The time zone for cron schedules is UTC, so in these examples, the midnight build and the noon build are at midnight and noon in UTC.

The schedules are read and updated when the following events occur, and schedules getadded to the scheduling database for the current branch, if the branch criteria is satisfied.

• The yaml file is created or updated
• A pipeline is created or updated
• A new branch is created

Supported cron syntax

Each cron expression is a space-delimited expression with five entries in the following order.

Values can be in the following formats.

For more information on supported formats, see Crontab Expression.

Note

Each cron schedule has a maximum of 100 pipeline runs per week. If you need more,you can split your cron schedule into multiple cron schedules that each result in100 or less pipeline runs per week.

Migrating from the classic editor

The following examples show you how to migrate your schedules from the classic editor to YAML.

Example: Nightly build of Git repo in multiple time zones

In this example, the classic editor scheduled trigger has two entries, producing the following builds.

• Every Monday - Friday at 3:00 AM (UTC + 5:30 time zone), build branches that meet the features/india/* branch filter criteria

• Every Monday - Friday at 3:00 AM (UTC - 5:00 time zone), build branches that meet the features/nc/* branch filter criteria

The equivalent YAML scheduled trigger is:

In the first schedule, M-F 3:00 AM (UTC + 5:30) India daily build, the cron syntax (mm HH DD MM DW) is 30 21 * * Sun-Thu.

• Minutes and Hours - 30 21 - This maps to 21:30 UTC, or 9:30 PM UTC. Since the specified time zone in the classic editor is UTC + 5:30, we need to subtract 5 hours and 30 minutes from the desired build time of 3:00 AM to arrive at the desired UTC time to specify for the YAML trigger.
• Days and Months are specified as wildcards since this schedule doesn't specify to run only on certain days of the month, or on a specific month.
• Days of the week - Sun-Thu - because of the timezone conversion, for our builds to run at 3:00 AM in the UTC + 5:30 India time zone, we need to specify starting them the previous day in UTC time. We could also specify the days of the week as 0-4 or 0,1,2,3,4.

In the second schedule, M-F 3:00 AM (UTC - 5) NC daily build, the cron syntax is 0 8 * * Mon-Fri.

• Minutes and Hours - 0 8 - This maps to 8:00 AM UTC. Since the specified time zone in the classic editor is UTC - 5:00, we need to add 5 hours from the desired build time of 3:00 AM to arrive at the desired UTC time to specify for the YAML trigger.
• Days and Months are specified as wildcards since this schedule doesn't specify to run only on certain days of the month, or on a specific month.
• Days of the week - Mon-Fri - Because our timezone conversions don't span multiple days of the week for our desired schedule, we don't need to do any conversion here. We could also specify the days of the week as 1-5 or 1,2,3,4,5.

Important

The UTC time zones in YAML scheduled triggers don't account for daylight savings time.

Example: Nightly build with different frequencies

In this example, the classic editor scheduled trigger has two entries, producing the following builds.

• Every Monday - Friday at 3:00 AM UTC, build branches that meet the master and releases/* branch filter criteria

• Every Sunday at 3:00 AM UTC, build the releases/lastversion branch, even if the source or pipeline hasn't changed

The equivalent YAML scheduled trigger is:

In the first schedule, M-F 3:00 AM (UTC) daily build, the cron syntax is 0 3 * * Mon-Fri.

• Minutes and Hours - 0 3 - This maps to 3:00 AM UTC. Since the specified time zone in the classic editor is UTC, we don't need to do any time zone conversions.
• Days and Months are specified as wildcards since this schedule doesn't specify to run only on certain days of the month, or on a specific month.
• Days of the week - Mon-Fri - because there is no timezone conversion, the days of the week map directly from the classic editor schedule. We could also specify the days of the week as 1,2,3,4,5.

In the second schedule, Sunday 3:00 AM (UTC) weekly latest version build, the cron syntax is 0 3 * * Sun.

• Minutes and Hours - 0 3 - This maps to 3:00 AM UTC. Since the specified time zone in the classic editor is UTC, we don't need to do any time zone conversions.
• Days and Months are specified as wildcards since this schedule doesn't specify to run only on certain days of the month, or on a specific month.
• Days of the week - Sun - Because our timezone conversions don't span multiple days of the week for our desired schedule, we don't need to do any conversion here. We could also specify the days of the week as 0.
• We also specify always: true since this build is scheduled to run whether or not the source code has been updated.

Scheduled builds are not yet supported in YAML syntax.After you create your YAML build pipeline, you can use pipeline settings to specify a scheduled trigger.

Select the days and times when you want to run the build.

If your repository is Azure Repos Git, GitHub, or Other Git, then you can also specify branches to include and exclude. If you want to use wildcard characters, then type the branch specification (for example, features/modules/*) and then press Enter.

Example: Nightly build of Git repo in multiple time zones

Azure Pipelines and Azure DevOps 2019 Server

In this example, the classic editor scheduled trigger has two entries, producing the following builds.

• Every Monday - Friday at 3:00 AM (UTC + 5:30 time zone), build branches that meet the features/india/* branch filter criteria

• Every Monday - Friday at 3:00 AM (UTC - 5:00 time zone), build branches that meet the features/nc/* branch filter criteria

TFS 2017.1 and older versions

Example: Nightly build with different frequencies

Azure Pipelines and Azure DevOps 2019 Server

In this example, the classic editor scheduled trigger has two entries, producing the following builds.

• Every Monday - Friday at 3:00 AM UTC, build branches that meet the master and releases/* branch filter criteria

• Every Sunday at 3:00 AM UTC, build the releases/lastversion branch, even if the source or pipeline hasn't changed

TFS 2017.1 and older versions

TFVC gated check-in

If your code is in a Team Foundation version control (TFVC) repo, use gated check-in to protect against breaking changes.

By default Use workspace mappings for filters is selected. Builds are triggered whenever a change is checked in under a path specified in your mappings in the source repository settings.

Otherwise, you can clear this check box and specify the paths in the trigger.

How it affects your developers

When developers try to check-in, they are prompted to build their changes.

The system then creates a shelveset and builds it.

For details on the gated check-in experience, see Check in to a folder that is controlled by a gated check-in build pipeline.

Option to run CI builds

By default, CI builds are not run after the gated check-in process is complete and the changes are checked in.

However, if you do want CI builds to run after a gated check-in, select the Run CI triggers for committed changes check box. When you do this, the build pipeline does not add ***NO_CI*** to the changeset description. As a result, CI builds that are affected by the check-in are run.

A few other things to know

• Make sure the folders you include in your trigger are also included in your mappings on the Repository tab.

• You can run gated builds on either a Microsoft-hosted agent or a self-hosted agent.

Build completion triggers

Build completion triggers are not yet supported in YAML syntax.After you create your YAML build pipeline, you can use the classic editor to specify a build completion trigger.

Large products have several components that are dependent on each other.These components are often independently built. When an upstream component (a library, for example) changes, the downstream dependencies have to be rebuilt and revalidated.

In situations like these, add a build completion trigger to run your build upon the successful completion of the triggering build. You can select any other build in the same project.

After you add a build completion trigger, select the triggering build. If the triggering build is sourced from a Git repo, you can also specify branch filters. If you want to use wildcard characters, then type the branch specification (for example, features/modules/*) and then press Enter.

Note

Keep in mind that in some cases, a single multi-job build could meet your needs.However, a build completion trigger is useful if your requirements include different configuration settings, options, or a different team to own the dependent pipeline.

Download artifacts from the triggering build

In many cases, you'll want to download artifacts from the triggering build. To do this:

1. Edit your build pipeline.

2. Add the Download Build Artifacts task to one of your jobs under Tasks.

3. For Download artifacts produced by, select Specific build.

4. Select the team Project that contains the triggering build pipeline.

5. Select the triggering Build pipeline.

6. Select When appropriate, download artifacts from the triggering build.

7. Even though you specified that you want to download artifacts from the triggering build, you must still select a value for Build. The option you choose here determines which build will be the source of the artifacts whenever your triggered build is run because of any other reason than BuildCompletion (e.g. Manual, IndividualCI, or Schedule, and so on).

8. Specify the Artifact name and make sure it matches the name of the artifact published by the triggering build.

9. Specify the Destination directory to which you want to download the artifacts. For example: $(Build.BinariesDirectory)

Wildcards

When specifying a branch or tag, you may use an exact name or a wildcard.Wildcards patterns allow * to match zero or more characters and ? to match a single character.For branches and tags, a wildcard may appear anywhere in the pattern.

For paths, you may include * as the final character, but it doesn't do anything differently from specifying the directory name by itself.You may not include * in the middle of a path filter, and you may not use ?.

Q & A

How do I protect my Git codebase from build breaks?

If your code is in a Git repo on Azure Repos or Team Foundation Server, you can create a branch policy that runs your build. See Improve code quality with branch policies. This option is not available for GitHub repos.

My build didn't run. What happened?

Someone must view a page in your organization regularly for CI and scheduled builds to run. It can be any page, including, for example, Azure Pipelines.

Your organization goes dormant five minutes after the last user signed out of Azure DevOps. After that, each of your build pipelines will run one more time. For example, while your organization is dormant:

• A nightly build of code in your organization will run only one night until someone signs in again.

• CI builds of an Other Git repo will stop running until someone signs in again.

The YAML file in my branch is different than the YAML file in my master branch, which one is used?

• For CI triggers, the YAML file that is in the branch you are pushing is evaluated to see if a CI build should be run.
• For PR triggers, the YAML file that is in the source branch of the PR is evaluated to see if a PR build should be run.

Do I need an agent?

You need at least one agent to run your build or release. Get an agent for Linux, macOS, or Windows.

I'm having problems. How can I troubleshoot them?

See Troubleshoot Build and Release.

I can't select a default agent pool and I can't queue my build or release. How do I fix this?

See Agent pools.

I use TFS on-premises and I don't see some of these features. Why not?

Some of these features are available only onAzure Pipelinesand not yet available on-premises. Some features are available on-premises if you haveupgraded to the latest version of TFS.