Azure pipelines support the CI/CD (Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment), the fully automated Continuous Delivery process.
Agents, either hosted by Microsoft, or self-hosted on the client’s infrastructure, execute the yaml scripts.
Steps
The smallest unit of work in the Azure Pipeline. Each step is one action in a job. A Step can be a Script or a Task.
Script
A Script is a command written in a scripting language to be executed as a step of a job.
Running a Bash Script
steps:
- script: echo "Hello, World!"
displayName: 'Script to say Hello'Task
A Task is a packaged script that can be used as a step within a job:
- Built-in tasks from Azure Pipeline
- Custom scripts written in PowerShell, Bash, Python or other languages
- Third-party tasks from the Azure DevOps Marketplace
Running a Task, to execute an Azure CLI command with attributes
steps:
- task: AzureCLI@2
displayName: 'Run Azure CLI Command'
inputs:
azureSubscription: 'MyAzureSubscription' # Service connection to Azure
scriptType: 'bash' # Specify the script type (bash or ps)
scriptLocation: 'inlineScript' # Define the script location
inlineScript: | # Start the inline script
echo "Listing all resources in the resource group..."
az resource list --resource-group MyResourceGroup
Jobs
The job is a single phase of the pipeline executing multiple steps. Jobs can run in parallel or in sequence if those depend on each other. It has its own context and workspace, so variables and files created in one job are kept separate from each other. This allows the easier troubleshooting of the process. Typical steps are:
- Building code
- Running tests
Stages
Stages hold related jobs together. It can represent
- Environments, like
- Development,
- QA,
- Production,
- or Related jobs, like
- Build,
- Test,
- Deploy.
Triggers
Triggers tells the pipeline to run. It can be based on
- Events, like
- A commit to a repository or
- A pull request
- or Schedules
- To run at specific times, like end of the day.
Approval
Gatekeeper before the stage can proceed. The pipeline execution pauses until the approval arrives. It can be
- Manual (like human approval is required before deployment to Production)
- Automatic (like only during business hours, or when automated tests are passed)
