Azure DevOps CI/CD

Build and Publish

There's some controversy as some folks REALLY like the "classic" pipeline while others like the .yaml (Yet Another Markup Language, IMHO) style. .yaml doesn't have all the features of the original pipeline yet, but it's close. It's primary advantage is that the pipeline definition exists as a single .yaml file and can be checked-in with your source code. That way someone (you, whomever) could import your GitHub or DevOps Git repository and it includes everything it needs to build and optionally deploy the app. The .yaml file lives in the root directory of the application. The example below shows the configuration for build & publish:

Publishing the CI build to a WebApp using CD

To start off you need to create a 'pipeline'. To do this click the Create Pipeline button, top right, then select the desired repo and follow the wizard to complete this task. Now you should be presented with your pipeline as in the image below:



Now you need to create a 'release pipeline'. To do this click 'releases' from the menu on the left, then 'create release' (top right). You will then be presented with a wizard as below:



Select an 'artifact', which in this example this a branch and version of our code in the repo.

Now you will see a screen displaying the new 'release pipeline' as in the image below:



Now for this example, since the build and publish of our code is taken care of in the .yaml file in the root of our simple app source code. All we have to do is now deploy our published build to an Azure WebApp. To do this click 'Edit' (top right) after clicking on 'releases' from the 'Pipelines' menu.



Then click on the 'task' link for stage 1. Now we can add predefined tasks by click the '+' button to the right of Agent Job. All we need for this simple example is the Azure App Service Deploy task.



Details of which should look like something those below, you can also click view .yaml (you are advised to save the contents for reference):-







So now you are all set to deploy your release pipleline to an Azure WebApp. Now click on the release pipeline, hover over stages, in this case there is only one, and click deploy. Click on deploy and again on the pop-wizard and wait for the release to be queued, built and then deployed.



If all goes well you should get a Succeeded message under Stage 1. Click on the Succeeded message and you can see a list of all the job tasks and results.