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Abhishek Verma
Abhishek Verma

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🚀 Build & Ship Faster with Azure DevOps PR Helper — A VS Code Extension for Seamless Pull Requests

#vscode #extensions #azure #devops

Say goodbye to browser tabs, manual PRs, and context switching.

If you're a developer using Azure DevOps and VS Code, chances are you've wished there was a smoother way to raise pull requests without jumping into the Azure portal every time.

Introducing Azure DevOps PR Helper — a free and open-source VS Code extension I created to automate and streamline PR creation right inside your code editor. With just a few prompts, this tool helps you:

✅ Raise PRs
✅ Link Work Items
✅ Copy the PR URL
✅ And do it all without leaving VS Code.

🔗 GitHub Repository

👉 https://github.com/mrcreatist/azure-devops-pr-helper

💡 Why I built this

At work, I often found myself repeating the same steps for every PR:

  • Switch to browser
  • Open Azure DevOps
  • Navigate to the repo
  • Find the right branch
  • Fill in the details
  • Link work items manually

This was unnecessarily slow — and let’s be honest — breaks the developer flow.

I realized that VS Code already knows the repo, branch, and more. So I built this extension to automate the grunt work and make the PR process frictionless.

🔧 Key Features

🔐 Secure PAT Handling

The extension securely stores your Azure DevOps Personal Access Token (PAT) using vscode.SecretStorage, so you only enter it once.

🌱 Auto-detects Repo & Branch

It uses Git CLI to automatically detect your repository and current branch, pre-filling the prompts to save time.

📤 Pull Request Creation

Raises a new PR using Azure DevOps REST API, with options to enter:

  • Source branch
  • Target branch
  • PR title and description

🔗 Work Item Linking

You can directly link one or more Work Item IDs while raising the PR — no separate step needed!

📋 Copy PR URL Instantly

After the PR is raised, you get an option to copy the PR URL to clipboard for quick sharing.

🏁 Getting Started

  1. Clone the repo
  2. Run npm install
  3. Create an org-config.ts file like this: 
export const orgConfig = {
  orgHost: 'https://YOUR_ORG.visualstudio.com',
  project: 'YOUR_PROJECT'
};
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  1. Open in VS Code and launch the extension host
  2. Use the command palette:
  • Raise PR → to start
  • Copy Last PR URL → to retrieve the latest PR link

🧠 Behind the Scenes

  • VS Code Extension API: For prompts, command registration, and secure storage
  • Git CLI + child_process: For branch and repo detection
  • Axios + Azure DevOps REST API: For PR creation and work item linking
  • TypeScript: For type safety and readability

📈 SEO Tags

Azure DevOps, VS Code Extension, Raise PR from VS Code, Automate Azure DevOps Pull Request, Link Work Items DevOps, DevOps Developer Productivity Tools, Azure DevOps REST API PR, Secure PAT VS Code, GitHub Open Source Extensions, DevOps Workflow Automation

📬 What’s next?

I’m planning:

  • Reviewer assignment support
  • Default PR templates
  • Auto-close linked work items
  • Publishing to the official VS Code Marketplace

🙌 Contribute

This project is open-source and built for developers, by a developer.

If you:

  • Use Azure DevOps
  • Want to speed up your PR process
  • Love clean VS Code integrations

Then clone it, try it out, and feel free to fork, star ⭐️, or raise a PR:
👉 https://github.com/mrcreatist/azure-devops-pr-helper

✍️ Author

Abhishek Verma
Software Developer | Builder of Useful Things | @axvrma

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