I'm trying to get a TFS current build directory path but it's not working. I've tried this:
Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Activities.Extensions.WellKnownEnvironmentVariables.BuildDirectory
I see it printing right path with "GetBuildDirectory" Step (in the diagnostics log), but How would I store this information into a variable?
ANSWER:
There have been TF_BUILD environment variables.You can use the TF_BUILD environment variables to get key bits of data that you need for your build process logic. More from MSDN: Team Foundation Build environment variables
You could just reference the TF_BUILD_BUILDDIRECTORY to get The build agent working directory. For example: C:\Build\BuildBot3\CoolApp\CIBuild.
Related
We are moving from tfs 2012 to tfs 2018 and converting our XAML build templates to 2015.
For the most part, using the default build template TfvcTemplate12 work well. However when a project references the build number, it fails.
One example is when we use the windows service publish task.
<WindowsServicePublishTask Publish="$(DeployFileService)" ServiceDisplayName="$(ServiceDisplayName)" Destinations="$(ServiceDestinations)" SourcePath="$(OutDir)" BuildNumber="$(BuildNumber)" CreateDropFolder="$(CreateDropFolder)" />
I get the following error
The "WindowsServicePublishTask" task was not given a value for the required parameter "BuildNumber".
How can I reference the build number using TfvcTemplate12?
You are using the wrong environment variables. For XAML build:
TF_BUILD_BUILDNUMBER The build number of the build. For example: CIBuild_20130613.6.
More details please refer TF_BUILD environment variables
You can use the TF_BUILD environment variables to get key bits of data that you need for your build process logic. For example, you can get the path to the source folder or the path to the folder that contains the outputs you want to drop.
TF_BUILD environment variables
Use environment variables in MSBuild
Use environment variables in programs or scripts
Use environment variables in a custom build process
A sample of adding something like the following options to the MSBuild arguments:
/p:DeployOnBuild=true;DeployMethod=Package /p:DefaultPackageOutputDir=”$(TF_BUILD_BINARIESDIRECTORY)”\WebPackage
I have set an environment variable on my system named MSBUILD_HOME that points to the directory that contains the msbuild.exe.
I want to reference this environment variable in the TFS build configuration. Specifically, I want to reference it in the Build->Advanced->Path to MSBUILD field of an MSBuild configuration step.
I have tried: MSBUILD_HOME, $(MSBUILD_HOME), %MSBUILD_HOME% but nothing works and I've Googled this to death. What am I missing?
Doh! I just needed to restart the build agent to pick up the changes to the environment. Using $(MSBUILD_HOME) was the right way to reference it.
I'm setting up some TFS build definitions. I see that once I run a build, the work is done within a subfolder of a subdirectory of /Agent/_work. It appears that the subfolder is the same between different executions of the same build definition, but I see no way to know in advance where I should expect TFS to set its working directory, nor do I see any way of specifying the name of the directory manually.
How does TFS determine what directory to use for the output from a build?
Refer to the documentation on build variables. The base folder can be accessed via the $(Agent.BuildDirectory) variable. The source folder is $(Build.SourcesDirectory).
You can't set this. It's determined by the agent's configuration.
Is it possible to read a file from the git source control and set values to TFS build variables so that we can use them in other steps?
We have a file with the version info and the branch (VER_TYPE=3 is DEV) that we use to set up assembly version together with the build number
VER_MAJOR=2018
VER_MINOR=1
VER_TYPE=3
Tks in advance!
It's possible to define or modify a variable from a script, use the task.setvariable logging command.
Sets a variable in the variable service of taskcontext. The first
task can set a variable, and following tasks are able to use the
variable. The variable is exposed to the following tasks as an
environment variable.
When issecret is set to true, the value of the variable will be saved
as secret and masked out from log. Secret variables are not passed
into tasks as environment variables and must be passed as inputs.
Examples:
##vso[task.setvariable variable=testvar;]testvalue
##vso[task.setvariable variable=testvar;issecret=true;]testvalue
More details please refer Define and modify your variables in a script
You can run a script on windows agent using either a Batch script task or PowerShell script task. You just need to read the specific file in source control, download it in the workspace on the build agent. Then read the file, a way using powershell for your reference: Read file line by line in PowerShell
We have a version number which is retrieved from a file during the build and needs to be passed to the deployment script. What is the best way to do this in TFS 2017?
Right now, we are thinking of embedding this version number in the artifact file name and parsing it during deployment, which feels a bit clumsy.
BTW, is there a way to get the artifact file name easily? Looks like TFS already knows this as shown in the log below:
No path specified for search pattern: *.zip defaulting to: F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8519067Z Searching for: *.zip under directory: F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8519067Z Found: 1 files to extract:
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8519067Z F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a\ZFJ0_ServiceSearchPlusBuildDefn\BETALink.Service.SearchPlus\ZFJ0_BETALink10.4 DevOps_BETALink.Service.SearchPlus_1.0.0_886.zip
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8519067Z Creating destination folder: F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a\48
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8519067Z Extracting file: F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a\ZFJ0_ServiceSearchPlusBuildDefn\BETALink.Service.SearchPlus\ZFJ0_BETALink10.4 DevOps_BETALink.Service.SearchPlus_1.0.0_886.zip
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8519067Z [command]F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\_tasks\ExtractFiles_5e1e3830-fbfb-11e5-aab1-090c92bc4988\1.112.1\7zip\7z.exe x -oF:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a\48 F:\TFS2017_Release_Agent\_work\r1\a\ZFJ0_ServiceSearchPlusBuildDefn\BETALink.Service.SearchPlus\ZFJ0_BETALink10.4 DevOps_BETALink.Service.SearchPlus_1.0.0_886.zip
2017-12-08T16:38:36.8987827Z
First, custom build variable couldn't be used directly in your release definition with TFS 2017.
There had also been a related user voice:
Project level build/release variables
https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/330519-visual-studio-team-services/suggestions/14515326-project-level-build-release-variables#
As a workaround, you could use some 3-rd party extension such as Variable (de|re)Hydration Tasks that help you make use of your build variables in your Release workflows.
Variable Dehydration Task - During your build you can save the variables to a json file stored with your other build assets
Variable Rehydration Task - During your Release you can load the saved variables and gain access to them.
It does this by prefixes, so you can save/restore all default build variables that are prefixed with 'BUILD-', but if you prefix your own variables with i.e. 'ABC_' you can also save them from your build and restore them in your release.
Another way is do it through powershell scripts, how to please refer: TFS 2015 Release management access build variables
About build artifact name, there is not a related predefined system variable, it's just entered as an argument in Publish Build Artifacts task.