Category: VSTS

I decided to create a video of my blog post ‘Swapping my Azure DevOps Pipeline Extensions release process to use Multistage YAML pipelines’.

The video up on YouTube

I have today released another enrichment to the dataset available in my Cross Platform Release Notes Azure Pipeline Task. It now returns an extra array of data that links work items and commits to build artifacts.

So your reporting objects are:

Array Objects

• workItems – the array of all work item associated with the release
• commits – the array of all commits associated with the release
• pullRequests – the array of all PRs referenced by the commits in the release
• The new one – builds – the array of the build artifacts that CS and WI are associated with. Note that this is a object with three properties
• build – the build details
• commits – the commits associated with this build
• workitems – the work items associated with the build

Release objects (only available in a release)

• releaseDetails – the release details of the release that the task was triggered for.
• compareReleaseDetails – the the previous successful release that comparisons are being made against

Build objects

• buildDetails – if running in a build, the build details of the build that the task is running in. If running in a release it is the build that triggered the release.

Note: To dump all possible values use the form {{json propertyToDump}} this runs a custom Handlebars extension to do the expansion

It is important to realised that these arrays are only available using the Handlebars form of templating. You can find sample here

I recently post about Enriching the data available in my Azure DevOps Pipelines Cross Platform Release Notes Task by adding Pull Request information. Well, that first release was fairly limited only working for PR validation builds, so I have made more improvements and shipped a newer version.

The task now will, as well as checking for PR build trigger, try to associate the commits associated with a build/release pipeline to any completed PRs in the repo. This is done using the Last Merge Commit ID, and from my tests seems to work for the various types of PR e.g. squash, merge, rebased and semi-linear.

The resultant set of PRs are made available to the release notes template processor as an array. However, there is a difference between the existing arrays for Work Items and Commits and the new one for Pull requests. The new one is only available if you are using the new Handlebars based templating mode.

You would add a block in the general form….

{{#forEach pullRequests}}
{{#if isFirst}}### Associated Pull Requests (only shown if  PR) {{/if}}
*  **PR {{this.id}}**  {{this.title}}
{{/forEach}}

The reason I have chosen to only support Handlebars is it make the development so much easier and provides a more flexible solution, given all the Handlebar helpers available. I think this might be the first tentative step towards deprecating my legacy templating solution in favour of only shipping Handlebars support.

A common request for my Generate Release Notes Tasks is to enrich the data available beyond basic build, work item and commit/changeset details. I have resisted these requests as it felt like a never ending journey to start. However, I have now relented and added the option to see any pull request information available.

This feature is limited, you obviously have to be using artifacts that linked to a Git repo, and also the Git repo have to on an Azure DevOps hosted repository. This won’t meet everyone’s needs but it is a start.

What was already available

Turns out there was already a means to get a limited set of PR details from a build. You used the form

**Build Trigger PR Number**: ${buildDetails.triggerInfo['pr.number']}

or in handlebars format

**Build Trigger PR Number**: {{lookup buildDetails.triggerInfo 'pr.number'}} 

The improvements

That said I have improved the options. There is now a new `prDetails` object available to the template.

If you use the dump option

${JSON.stringify(prDetails)}    

You can see the fields available

{
     "repository": {
         "id": "bebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59",
         "name": "VSTSBuildTaskValidation",
         "url": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f/_apis/git/repositories/bebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59",
         "project": {
             "id": "670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f",
             "name": "GitHub",
             "description": "A container for GitHub CI/CD processes",
             "url": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/_apis/projects/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f",
             "state": "wellFormed",
             "revision": 411511726,
             "visibility": 2,
             "lastUpdateTime": "2019-10-10T20:35:51.85Z"
         },
         "size": 9373557,
         "remoteUrl": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/DefaultCollection/GitHub/_git/VSTSBuildTaskValidation",
         "sshUrl": "richardfennell@vs-ssh.visualstudio.com:v3/richardfennell/GitHub/VSTSBuildTaskValidation",
         "webUrl": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/DefaultCollection/GitHub/_git/VSTSBuildTaskValidation"
     },
     "pullRequestId": 4,
     "codeReviewId": 4,
     "status": 1,
     "createdBy": {
         "displayName": "Richard Fennell (Work MSA)",
         "url": "https://spsprodeus24.vssps.visualstudio.com/Ac0efb61e-a937-42a0-9658-649757d55d46/_apis/Identities/b1fce0e9-fbf4-4202-bc09-a290def3e98b",
         "_links": {
             "avatar": {
                 "href": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NzQzY2UyODUtN2Q0Ny03YjNkLTk0ZGUtN2Q0YjA1ZGE5NDdj"
             }
         },
         "id": "b1fce0e9-fbf4-4202-bc09-a290def3e98b",
         "uniqueName": "bm-richard.fennell@outlook.com",
         "imageUrl": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/_api/_common/identityImage?id=b1fce0e9-fbf4-4202-bc09-a290def3e98b",
         "descriptor": "aad.NzQzY2UyODUtN2Q0Ny03YjNkLTk0ZGUtN2Q0YjA1ZGE5NDdj"
     },
     "creationDate": "2020-04-04T10:44:59.566Z",
     "title": "Added test.txt",
     "description": "Added test.txt",
     "sourceRefName": "refs/heads/branch2",
     "targetRefName": "refs/heads/master",
     "mergeStatus": 3,
     "isDraft": false,
     "mergeId": "f76a6556-8b4f-44eb-945a-9350124f067b",
     "lastMergeSourceCommit": {
         "commitId": "f43fa4de163c3ee0b4f17b72a659eac0d307deb8",
         "url": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f/_apis/git/repositories/bebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59/commits/f43fa4de163c3ee0b4f17b72a659eac0d307deb8"
     },
     "lastMergeTargetCommit": {
         "commitId": "829ab2326201c7a5d439771eef5a57f58f94897d",
         "url": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f/_apis/git/repositories/bebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59/commits/829ab2326201c7a5d439771eef5a57f58f94897d"
     },
     "lastMergeCommit": {
         "commitId": "53f393cae4ee3b901bb69858c4ee86cc8b466d6f",
         "author": {
             "name": "Richard Fennell (Work MSA)",
             "email": "bm-richard.fennell@outlook.com",
             "date": "2020-04-04T10:44:59.000Z"
         },
         "committer": {
             "name": "Richard Fennell (Work MSA)",
             "email": "bm-richard.fennell@outlook.com",
             "date": "2020-04-04T10:44:59.000Z"
         },
         "comment": "Merge pull request 4 from branch2 into master",
         "url": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f/_apis/git/repositories/bebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59/commits/53f393cae4ee3b901bb69858c4ee86cc8b466d6f"
     },
     "reviewers": [],
     "url": "https://richardfennell.visualstudio.com/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f/_apis/git/repositories/bebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59/pullRequests/4",
     "supportsIterations": true,
     "artifactId": "vstfs:///Git/PullRequestId/670b3a60-2021-47ab-a88b-d76ebd888a2f%2fbebd0ae2-405d-4c0a-b9c5-36ea94c1bf59%2f4"

}

In templates this new object could be is used

**PR Title **: ${prDetails.title}

or in handlebars format.

**PR Details**: {{prDetails.title}}

It will be interesting to here feedback from the real world as opposed to test harnesses

I recently got a very interesting PR for my Cross-platform Release Notes Azure DevOps Pipelines Extension from Kenneth Scott. He had added a new templating engine to the task, Handlebars.

Previous to this PR the templating in the task was done with a line by line evaluation of a template that used my own mark-up. This method worked but has limitations, mostly due to the line by line evaluation model.  With the Kenneth’s PR the option was added to write your templates in Handlebars, or stay with my previous templating engine.

Using Handlebars

If you use Handlebars, the template becomes something like

## Notes for release  {{releaseDetails.releaseDefinition.name}}    
**Release Number**  : {{releaseDetails.name}}
**Release completed** : {{releaseDetails.modifiedOn}}     
**Build Number**: {{buildDetails.id}}
**Compared Release Number**  : {{compareReleaseDetails.name}}    

### Associated Work Items ({{workItems.length}})
{{#each workItems}}
*  **{{this.id}}**  {{lookup this.fields 'System.Title'}}
   - **WIT** {{lookup this.fields 'System.WorkItemType'}} 
   - **Tags** {{lookup this.fields 'System.Tags'}}
{{/each}}

### Associated commits ({{commits.length}})
{{#each commits}}
* ** ID{{this.id}}** 
   -  **Message:** {{this.message}}
   -  **Commited by:** {{this.author.displayName}} 
{{/each}}

The whole template is evaluated by the Handlebars engine using its own mark-up to provide a means for looping across arrays and the like.

This seemed a great enhancement to the task. However, we soon realised that it could be better. Handlebars is extensible, so why not allow the extensibility to be used?

Using Handlebars Extensions

I have added extensibility in two ways. Firstly I have also added support for the common Handlebar-Helpers extensions, this added over 150 helpers. These are just accessed in a template as follows

## To confirm the handbars-helpers is work
The year is {{year}} 
We can capitalize "foo bar baz" {{capitalizeAll "foo bar baz"}}

I have also added the ability to provide a block of JavaScript as a task parameter is that is loaded as a custom Handlebars extension. So if you add the following block in the tasks customHandlebarsExtensionCode parameter.

module.exports = {foo: function () {return 'Returns foo';}};

You can access in the templates as

## To confirm our custom extension works
We can call our custom extension {{foo}}

It will be interesting to see how popular this alternative way of templating will be.