Pipeline Triggerer Extension for Azure Pipelines

This extension allows you to trigger any existing build or release definition. No matter if its implemented with the Classic Editor or YAML pipelines. This is usefull when you need to orchestrate one or several pipelines from your authored pipeline.

Highlights

This extension is cross platform. You can run it from Windows, Linux or macOS self-hosted agents. This extension allows you to orchestrate pipelines accross different projects or organizations

The Pipeline Triggerer Extension include the following contributions:

1. Pipeline Triggerer Task

2. Azure Devops Service Connection

Don't know how to get started? Well it's easy as:

1. Create your Service Endpoint
2. Add the Pipeline Triggerer Task to any of your build or release pipelines
3. Configure the Pipeline Triggerer Task
4. Run your pipeline!

Release status

This task extension is publicly available for free. You may add this extension to your DevOps organization directly from the Visual Studio Marketplace.

Prerequisites

• Node (>= 11.14 )
• NPM (>= 6.10)
• typescript compiler (npm i -g typescript)

Local Development

• Run npm install

• Run npm run build.

• Leverage VSCode launch settings and test locally. A reference launch configuration follows:

   "configurations": [
        {
            "type": "node",
            "request": "launch",
            "name": "Launch Task",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/pipeline-trigger-task/pipelinetriggerV1/index.js",
            "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}/pipeline-trigger-task/pipelinetriggerV1",
            "env": {
                "INPUT_OrganizationUrl":"https://dev.azure.com/<org>",
                "INPUT_releaseUrl":"https://vsrm.dev.azure.com/<org>",
                "INPUT_AzureDevOpsProjectName":"demo",
                "INPUT_token":"<pat-token>",
                "INPUT_BuildPipelineName":"<build-pipeline-name>",
                "INPUT_ReleasePipelineName":"<release-pipeline-name>",
                "INPUT_Pipeline":"Build",
                "INPUT_Description":"Test",
                "INPUT_Branch":"",
                "INPUT_BuildNumber":"",
            },
            "outFiles": [],
            "stopOnEntry": false
        },

Tests

All platforms:

Run npm run test

Debug Traces

If you wish to enable detailed traces, also set TASK_TEST_TRACE=1 before running test.

On Windows (Powershell), you can do this using $env:TASK_TEST_TRACE=1.

Testing in your own DevOps Organization

Sometimes unit testing alone isn't sufficient and you may want to test your changes in a real Azure DevOps organization. To do so, however, you will need to change some values in the manifest files so that you can run npm run package to create a VSIX package that you can install privately into your own organization. Follow these steps:

Prerequisites for Development/Contribution

• Signup for Azure DevOps.
• Once you have created a new organization, you will need a Visual Studio Marketplace publisher account to install the extension into your newly-created organization. Click here to create a new publisher account.
• Now that you have created your publisher account, you are now ready to make necessary changes to the manifest files to create a private package that you can publish using your new publisher account to your own organization.
• To manage your new publisher account, you can visit https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/manage/publishers/{your_publisher_account_name}.

Updating the manifest files

• In the vss-extension.json file, modify the value of the name property to something unique.
  • Tip: Maybe give it a suffix or a prefix that clearly identifies it as your private build.
• IMPORTANT: Change the value of the following properties:
  • Set galleryFlags to Private instead of Public.
  • Set publisher to **your** publisher account name.
• Change the task id property to a unique value. This is done in the task.json file You can get a new, unique value from https://www.guidgen.com.
• Change the value of the name property to something unique in this file as well.
  • This is the name you will see in the Azure Pipelines build when you add it as a task.
• IMPORTANT: Change the value of the author property to be **your** publisher account name.

Generate a private package

• From the root of the project directory, run npm run package. This will bump the version number and produce a new package with the .vsix file extension.
• Go to your publisher account page, https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/manage/publishers/{your_publisher_account_name} (be sure to replace {your_publisher_account_name} with the actual value), and click on New Extension > Azure DevOps and drag/drop the VSIX file you generated in the previous step.
• Follow the on-screen instructions (if any). Now you are ready to share the private build with your organization.

Share the private build with your organization

• Once the package upload is complete, you can click on the options icon (the ... button) and click on Share/Unshare.
• Click on + Organization to add your newly-created DevOps organization.

Installing the private build

• Finally, you can now head over to your organization and install the extension that has been shared with it.
• Go to the root of your organization, https://dev.azure.com, and click on the Organization Settings button in the bottom-left corner.
• Then click on Extensions and then click on the Shared tab. You should see your private extension.
• Click on the install button and follow the instructions to complete installing it.

Once installed, return to your organization and create a new Azure Pipelines build and you should now see the newly installed private build of the task extension.

Uploading new versions of the private build

• To continue testing your private build of the task extension, you can simply run npm run package in the root of this project, and then upload a new build to your publisher account.
• Once uploaded, any Azure Pipelines build agents using it will automatically pick up the new version in a few minutes.

Completing your testing

• Once your testing is complete, you must revert the changes you made to the vss-extension.json and task.json as part of generating your private build. However, any other changes you made to those files, that is relevant to any Pull Request you decide to submit can remain intact.

Package

Learn more here.

• Ensure you have tfx cli installed by running tfx version. If it is not installed, then run npm i -g tfx-cli.
• Run npm run package from the root directory.