We have a "continuous integration build" definition in our TFS project. Each time there is a check-in, the source is fetched, compiled, and some automated tests are run. On the "Repository" tab of the build definition, there is a Clean option, i.e.:
screen grab showing clean option on tab
We are currently using TFVC, but are considering moving to Git.
Currently, we have the clean set to 'false', so when the build starts, the build agent does an incremental get of the source files. Throughout most of the day, this is exactly what we want since it does shorten the build times. However, it seems prudent to periodically have the agent empty the build directories, e.g. once/day. It would be nice to automate this in some way, for example if it was true whenever the $(Rev) equals 1, i.e. the first build of the day.
I've tried a few variations, entering "$(Rev) == 1" into the drop-down, or using a variable from the 'Variables' tab which takes that value, but neither seems to work. I've looked the on-line MSDN documentation, but it fails to even suggest anything other than 'true' or 'false' are valid values.
I'd welcome any guesses or suggestions for further tests, or ideas.
For now, the clean is only two option true/false no matter you are using TFVC and GIT.
Clean:
If you set it to true, the build agent cleans the repo this way:
undo pending changes
scorch
Set this to false if you want to define an incremental build to
improve performance.
Tip: In this case, if you are building Visual Studio projects, on the
Build tab, you can also uncheck the Clean check box of the Visual
Studio Build or MSBuild step.
You could add a uservoice here, TFS PM will kindly review your suggestion. As a workaround, you could add a Scheduled Build at the end of a day do the clean repo operation.
Related
Our builds generally have a mish mash of work items and commits associated with them and I cannot tell how TFS determines what to add. We are using TFS 2015 update 3 and TFVC.
When a build runs, it gets code from a location somewhere in the branching and folder of TFVC. Typically, something like "root\dev\src\component name" in this way we avoid getting all of the code in our repository and we have CI set up to run so that any changes in this folder will result in a CI build running.
We also run daily builds which run more tests and create a release package that is used by TFS Release Management. I would expect that any changes to code inside of the folder defined in setting up the repository for this build to be included in the associated change-sets of a build. I also expect that any changes checked-in outside of these branches would not be associated. But this is not the case. We see commits from across the entire project.
Does anyone know how this is supposed to work?
I am not sure if this should go in the question or the answer but I have found some additional information, thanks to the hints provided in the answers below.
It appears that the source settings will take the common root between mapped folders of the repository settings, so if I have 2 folders $/Relo/Dev/B1/src/Claims.Services and $/Relo/Dev/B1/src/PSScripts it will take the common root $/Relo/Dev/B1/src as the source settings and include any changes from that folder down within the build. Can anyone confirm this? Of course thats not what I want to have happen. In the History tab of the build definition if I looked at the diff I can see a field "defaultBranch" in the json which seems to be the value that controls this, is there any way to update this field directly?
TFS determines what changesets should be mapped to a build based on the Source Repository Mappings (Build vNext) in the build definition and the last successful build.
So, you will see a list of the changesets with files committed in the lowest common base of any of the mapped folders including all their descendents, since the latest successful build. Whenever you get a successful build (I hope that it happens more often than failing ones ;-)) the list will shorten and only show the last check-in.
Example mappings below will result in any changeset made to anything below $/Relo/Dev/B1/src (because it is the lowest common base):
$/Relo/Dev/B1/src/Claims.Services
$/Relo/Dev/B1/src/PSScripts
Similar it will pick up all the related work items to the above changesets.
This is what should happen. If you see something else, I would have a closer look at the Repository Mappings or Source Settings of the build definition.
#Noel - I guess you are using vNext build and not XAML builds. Or are you using a mix of XAML and vNext?
In general a scheduled TFS build will associate all changes which were not associated in the last successful run of the same build.
I suggest you check once again if the source folder locations are the same for CI build and Daily build?
Our TFS 2013 admins have given us one build definition to build our solution and run all unit tests and they are not willing to create any more build definitions. We are following feature branch strategy and would like to use this build definition for our gated builds. I am trying to find how to use this one build definition with multiple branches.
I know, I can add all branches to Source settings and build them whenever a check-in is made. But I want to find out, if there is any way to add branches to Source settings, but only compile the solution that has been checked in. For example if we add 5 solutions to the Source settings, we want to compile only the solution that has changed rather than all 5 solutions.
You will need to setup an incremental build that only builds the solutions that have changed.
Ideally you will want to setup a build for every branch. You would still use the one build template given to you, but you would define the work-spaces and behavior differently for each branch depending on your needs. However if you do not have that option you can still implement what you are trying to do.
For example if you only want to build the solution that has changed you will set up your build to be an incremental build like the following:
In the "Process" tab update the "Items to build" section to any *.sln or *.*proj
In the "Workspace" section, select only the source control paths of each branch if setting up a build for every branch or select the entire source if that is how you have to do it ($/).
Change the build to an incremental build by changing the Build Process Parameters on the "Process" tab - CleanWorkspace=None
Tag one of the build agents, so that it is the only one used for these incremental builds. Set the build to only use this tagged agent. It is important that the same build agent or set of agents is used for the builds if incremental builds are to work.
Is it possible programmatically to on a Gated -Check in build in TFS 2010 to not trigger a Gated Build when checking in a specific file type, i.e. ".config"? How can I accomplish that?
Not that I know of, you can only configure the workspace mappings which controls when the build triggers. so you can include or cloak folders, but not file types.
Presumably you don't want to run the Gated Build because a config file won't affect the build. But still running the build anyways shouldn't really hurt anything, you just waste a little bit of resources on your build server.
If it's really a concern, you can customize the build template, to look at what files are in the linked changeset (using a custom activity and the TFS API probably), and if it's just config files abort the build (with a successful result).
I would go down the route of seeing what messages TFS processes when performing a gated checkin. It might be possible to some how write a TFS server side plugin to hook the event, inspect the changeset and stop the build while allowing the shelf set to commit.
You are swimming pretty far out of Microsofts swim lane on this one so I'm not sure how much work and what the side effects would be on this one.
FWIW, I would want the build to run even on a config file change because I always want to be able to deploy the latest build and see the state of my project.
Currently we are using StarTeam to perform the build as well as versioning. we planned to migrate startteam to TFS2010. We have some script for perform the build. i wanted to change this script according to my requirement. i gone through the TFS but i had lot more confusion.
in StarTeam, we will get a files from "Ready to Build" label and perform the build. In TFS, how we are going to get a files from TFS? What concept should i use to get a files and perform the build? i have gone through the lot of commands like get, check-in, checkout etc..
If we use "tf get" command, we can get all the files from TFS but i have a clarification on that. shall i get all the files from TFS for every build? i hope, this is unnecessary headache.. correct me if i am wrong..
how we perform the build in TFS? i have read some types of build such as manual, gatedcheckin, Continuous Integration and schedule.
Is there any relationship between branch and build activities?
In TFS, What is the meaning of Workspace?
As said, many questions in one. Hope this helps along the way:
A workspace is a mapping between the server and a local storage,
similar to checkout in Subversion, view in ClearCase, etc.
"TF get" normally only fetches those files that have changed since
last update. You can force it to fetch everything - and sometimes
have to - but its not normally done.
Team Build is the recommended system to build with when using TFS. It can take some time to get into (Windows Workflow-based), but is quite powerful. There are default process definitions that set up the most common actions for you.
By default, you can't control whether to build by setting a certain label, but you can define that only this label should be used when builds are triggered. Labels in TFS work a little differently compared to other VCS, though, so maybe there's an 'opportunity' to re-think your build process along the way. If you're set on using a label as before, you'll need to build a Custom build activity.
Does TFS offer a way to save, track, and later redeploy builds by build number, or can you only deploy .dlls compiled from the current codebase? I'm looking for functionality similar to what you find in Changeman DS.
Yes. Every build definition in Team Build has a "retention policy" that defines how many historical builds should be kept, depending on certain criteria. You can also mark individual builds as "keep indefinitely." Kind of like a Tivo...
Example walkthru with screenshots: http://blogs.msdn.com/buckh/archive/2007/08/14/tfs-2008-a-basic-guide-to-team-build-2008.aspx
If you need to recover a build that has already been deleted from the drop share, you can do that too -- you'll just have to rebuild it. Simply queue up the build definition, but before you hit Go, type /p:GetVersion="XXX" in the text area at the bottom labeled "additional MSBuild arguments." XXX can be any versionspec, just like you'd use at the tf.exe command line. Examples might be "C12345" or "D1/10/2010" or "LsomeLabel".