This post is going to build on the Azure DevOps project we created in the last few posts and get the build pipeline to the point you have the application’s binaries. If you are just joining this series check out the previous posts to catch up.
Getting Started with Azure DevOps
Pipeline Creation in Azure DevOps
Edit the Pipeline
First, we need to get back to the pipeline we were working on. From the Project menu select Pipelines.
This will land you on a page that lists your recently run pipelines. If you don’t see your pipeline list you might have to click the All option near the top of the page. Since we only have one pipeline in this project we can use the ellipsis to open a context menu and click Edit.
Publish the Application
At this point, the YAML for our pipeline looks like the following.
trigger:
- master
pool:
vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
variables:
buildConfiguration: 'Release'
steps:
- task: UseDotNet@2
inputs:
packageType: 'sdk'
version: '3.1.x'
- script: dotnet build --configuration $(buildConfiguration)
displayName: 'dotnet build $(buildConfiguration)'
The pipeline will currently tell us if the included project builds, but doesn’t provide us with the results of that build. Using the Task panel on the right search for the .NET Core task and then click the resulting task. This is the task you would want to use to invoke any of the .NET CLI commands.
Use the drop-down for Command and select publish. For this sample, the defaults for the rest of the settings will be fine. Finally, click Add to add the task to the YAML file.
The following is the resulting YAML.
trigger:
- master
pool:
vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
variables:
buildConfiguration: 'Release'
steps:
- task: UseDotNet@2
inputs:
packageType: 'sdk'
version: '3.1.x'
- script: dotnet build --configuration $(buildConfiguration)
displayName: 'dotnet build $(buildConfiguration)'
- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
inputs:
command: 'publish'
publishWebProjects: true
Before we move on I want to point out the Settings link above the tasks in the YAML editor. Clicking Settings will load that task into the task panel on the right of the screen where you can make changes and then if you hit the add button it will replace your existing task with a new one with your new options selected. Be careful to not change the selection in the YAML editor as the add button is just replacing the selected text not remembering what task you click settings on. When finished click the Save button and go through the commit process. When that is finished click the Run button to execute the pipeline.
Publish Build Artifacts
The pipeline run should succeed, but we still don’t have any files we can use. Learning what variables are available in the pipeline and how to use them is one of the hardest parts of getting started with Azure Pipelines. For our example, we are trying to get the two zip files created by the publish step above which means our pipeline will need to publish artifacts to make the files available. We are going to tweak the publish command from above with an output directory using the builtin Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory variable. The following is the full task with the changes.
- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
inputs:
command: 'publish'
publishWebProjects: true
arguments: '--configuration $(buildConfiguration) --output $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
With the file we need in the artifact staging directory we need to publish those files using the Publish Pipeline Artifact task. The following is the full task that publishes the artifact staging directory to the pipeline.
- task: PublishPipelineArtifact@1
inputs:
targetPath: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
publishLocation: 'pipeline'
For reference, the following is the full YAML for the pipeline with all the above changes.
trigger:
- master
pool:
vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
variables:
buildConfiguration: 'Release'
steps:
- task: UseDotNet@2
inputs:
packageType: 'sdk'
version: '3.1.x'
- script: dotnet build --configuration $(buildConfiguration)
displayName: 'dotnet build $(buildConfiguration)'
- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
inputs:
command: 'publish'
publishWebProjects: true
arguments: '--configuration $(buildConfiguration) --output $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
- task: PublishPipelineArtifact@1
inputs:
targetPath: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
publishLocation: 'pipeline'
Save and run the pipeline. When the pipeline is complete on the result page you will see 1 published for artifacts.
Click on 1 published and it will take you to a page that lists the artifacts. If you mouse over any of the rows you will see the option to download the associated file(s).
Quick Tip
As I stated above getting a handle on what directories are where can be a pain. If you ever need to see what files are where you can use the following publish task to output the full set of files the pipeline is using by publishing the pipeline’s entire workspace. This has helped me in the past to orient myself.
- task: PublishPipelineArtifact@1
inputs:
targetPath: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)'
publishLocation: 'pipeline'
Wrapping Up
Our pipeline is now at the point we have files we could deploy. Hopefully, this gives you a good jump start on your own build pipelines. Azure Pipelines is a huge topic and this is a very basic build so keep an eye out for more posts on this topic in the future.
