Understanding the directory structure created by Azure DevOps tasks.

Sharlene D'Silva — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 23:35:52 +0000

As a beginner in all things Azure DevOps, understanding when folders are created and populated by the pipeline tasks is the first step to learning how to manipulate it to suit your needs.

The YAML

Using Visual Studio I created an ASP.NET based project (named TestApplication). The YAML file shown below was the template created by Azure DevOps, following this tutorial. However, the VSBuild@1 task was modified using this, as it resulted in a more suitable folder structure. I also added a PublishBuildArtifacts@1.



trigger:
- master

pool:
  vmImage: 'windows-latest'

variables:
  solution: '**/TestApplication.sln'
  buildPlatform: 'ANY CPU' # x86
  buildConfiguration: 'Release'
  buildversion: 1.0.0

steps:
- task: NuGetToolInstaller@1

- task: NuGetCommand@2
  inputs:
    restoreSolution: '$(solution)'

- task: VSBuild@1
  inputs:
    solution: '$(solution)'
    msbuildArgs: '/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactStagingDirectory)"'
    platform: '$(buildPlatform)'
    configuration: '$(buildConfiguration)'

- task: VSTest@2
  inputs:
    platform: '$(buildPlatform)'
    configuration: '$(buildConfiguration)'

- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  inputs:
    PathtoPublish: '$(build.artifactStagingDirectory)'
    ArtifactName: '$(buildversion)'
    publishLocation: 'Container'

I ran this YAML file multiple times using PowerShell tasks to display the environment variables at different stages of the pipeline.

Overall look at the directory structure

This image shows a big-picture look at the directory structure after one complete run of the pipeline.

Summary of when each directory is used

Most of this information, though publicly available on the Microsoft docs, is not very intuitive to a beginner. I hope that this table summarizes the usage of the most relevant directories.

Directory	Uses	References
/a	This is the working director for agent a.	Agent.WorkFolder
/a/1/a	Artifact staging directory. This is where the VS Build task results are stored in. The publish build artifacts task creates an artifact of whatever is in this folder. Note - it gets purged before each new build.	Build.StagingDirectory, System.ArtifactsDirectory, Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory
/a/1/b	The output folder for compiled binaries.	Build.BinariesDirectory
/a/1/s	Source directory. This is the working directory and where your source code is stored.	Build.SourcesDirectory, System.DefaultWorkingDirectory

Conclusion

This information was very helpful to me when it came down to customizing a YAML for my project. I wasn't able to find any existing documentation or articles like this, so please feel free to add links in the comments to similar articles if they exist.
:)

DEV Community: Sharlene D'Silva

Understanding the directory structure created by Azure DevOps tasks.

The YAML

Overall look at the directory structure

Summary of when each directory is used

Conclusion