Tag: Xpirit
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Publish symbols to Azure File Storage with the VSTS Hosted Agent
A while ago I migrated a lot of builds to the Visual Studio Team Services Hosted Agents. This works great. We reduced the number of build servers and agent on-premises and can now easily scal up and down. But .. as it goes… there is always that next thing on…
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Only trigger a release when the build changed
I created a Build task for this purpose as well. Check it out here! Back in the early days, when we used XAML builds in TFS (wow that seems like ages ago!), we had the possibility to NOT execute a build when nothing changed in the source code repository. This checkbox “Build…
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Installing a VSTS Build agent on Mac OSX
Today I needed to install the VSTS Build Agent on a Mac Mini in the office so we can build the IPhone App. The great part of the new build infrastructure in VSTS is that it is Cross Platform and we CAN do that. Just download the agent and run the…
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Migrate a complete Git Repository from TFS to VSTS
I am migrating some Git repositories from a TFS server to VSTS. Moving a Git repo including all the history is very simple fo course. Since Git is a Distributed Source Control repository. But I always forget the syntax of moving the “complete” Git repository at once. With all the…
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Run Functional (Coded) UI Tests in your VSTS Release Pipeline
Today I was trying to run some CodedUI test from my VSTS Release pipeline. The process is quite straightforward but there were some tiny catches I’d like to share with you Let me first show the pipeline I have created
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Programmatically promote your package quality with Release Views in VSTS
A short while ago, Package Management in VSTS became publicly available. Agreed, the features in the initial version are not overwhelming, but the potential is very high. If you are not familiar yet, with Package Management in VSTS , I highly recommend you take a look at the documentation on…
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Running a Linux SQL Server in a Docker Container
I just reinstalled my PC and needed a database for some simple work. I did not like the idea of installing a full SQL Server on my PC. Too heavy and takes too long. The I remembered that Microsoft recently announced that they can run SQL Server on Linux and…
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Order your VSTS Product Backlog based on the order within your Feature Backlog
I know, the title is crap but I just don’t know how to call it properly. Let me just give me the real life example. I have this pretty straightforward Product Backlog But I also have this feature hierarchy. Within the features I prioritize my Backlog items. The features also are ranked…
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Change VSTS release variables at queue time
When creating and queueing new build, a feature that I often use is the “allow change at queue time” checkbox next to the build variables Allowing me to change it at Queue time Sometimes you also want this for releases, but there is no such an option. However, you can do…
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Shrink the physical size of an Azure Virtual machine VHD
At a customer I am helping to set up a pipeline to spin up a complete new environment every night. The environment consists of multiple machines. 2 of the machines are preconfigured and cannot be automated (not now at least) with ARM and DSC to create everything from code (which…
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Running your ASP.NET Core application on Azure Container Service
While preparing for my Techdays session about “How ASP.NET Core and Docker will change the life of a Microsoft Developer” I was experimenting a bit with Azure Container Service and running my ASP.NET Core application on the ACS Cluster. Together with my colleague Alex Thissen and with some help of…
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Copy files (and run tests) on a remote machine back to the VSTS build and release agent
This week I was working on a script, running in my VSTS release pipeline that executed Pester tests on a remote machine. Running Pester tests on the VSTS Build and Release Agent work fine with one the awesome tasks on the Visual Studio Marketplace, but this was about running the…
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Set up a Windows Docker host in Azure and connect from your local computer
A while ago I blogged about how to set up a Docker host without Visual Studio. Now, half a year later things have changed and so have some steps. Yesterday I spun up a new Windows 2016 machine (CTP5) from the Azure gallery and (of course) it did not work…
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Set output variable in a Powershell VSTS Build Task
Currently I am building a pipeline that performs some actions on Azure. For example creating a Azure Storage Account. When doing this, I want to return some values from my Powershell script back into a variable of my Build Pipeline, so I can use this in another task. After some searching…
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Controlling build quality using Build Tags and VSTS Release Management
On many occasions a release is a composition of many different artifacts, like product MSI’s, Shared Assemblies, Documentation etc.. I like to compare it with a big box that you use when moving. You fill it up with all sort of little boxes and other stuff and you label it.…
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How Docker will change Microsoft Development
Two months ago we (Xpirit) published a new edition of our Xpirit Magazine. In this magazine I wrote an article on how Docker will change Microsoft Development. In this blog post you will find the introduction. If you want to read the whole article, you can download the PDF of…
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2 weeks full of highlights
Wow ! Normally I post about VSTS or TFS or just about some other techy stuff but my last 2 weeks were so packed with highlights, both personally and at Xpirit, I just wanted it to share with you. I’ll first give you the executive summary Personally I became ALM…
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The road to …. Xpirit
This post is not about ALM or TFS or Agile or Scrum. This post is about me and about an important and difficult decision that I have made. Starting in April I will join the recenlty founded company Xpirit as Lead ALM Consultant. Together with a small team (a.o. 5…
The Road to ALM 