Sharing Your Code: Streamlining Artifact Management in Azure DevOps Pipelines

Modern software development often involves complex pipelines with multiple stages. This article explores implementing artifact sharing between stages in Azure DevOps Pipelines. We'll guide you through publishing build artifacts to Azure Pipelines artifact stores, downloading and consuming these artifacts in downstream stages, and using artifact dependencies to ensure proper execution order.

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1. The Stage Approach: Breaking Down Complex Pipelines

• Azure DevOps pipelines allow you to define different stages for various tasks within your build and deployment process.
• Benefits of Stages:
  • Improved Organization: Break down complex workflows into manageable stages for better maintainability.
  • Parallel Execution: Certain stages can be executed in parallel for faster overall pipeline execution.

Challenges of Multi-Stage Pipelines:

• Sharing build outputs (artifacts) between stages can be crucial for efficient development workflows.

2. Publishing Your Code: Creating Reusable Artifacts

Build Artifacts:

• Represent the compiled code libraries or executables produced during your build process.
• These artifacts can be shared and consumed by downstream stages or even other pipelines.

Publishing with Azure Pipelines:

1. Within your Azure DevOps pipeline editor, navigate to the stage where you generate build artifacts.
2. Add a task to publish artifacts (e.g., "Publish build artifacts" task).
3. Configure the task to specify the path to your build output folder containing the compiled code (e.g., "bin/Release").
4. Choose an appropriate artifact publishing location (typically a project-scoped feed within Azure Pipelines artifacts).

By publishing build artifacts, you create reusable components that other stages or pipelines can leverage.

3. Consuming Code Across Stages: Downloading Artifacts

Downloading Artifacts in Downstream Stages:

1. Navigate to the downstream stage where you want to utilize the published artifacts.
2. Add a task to download artifacts (e.g., "Download pipeline artifact" task).
3. Configure the download task to specify the name of the artifact you want to download (the name you provided during publishing).
4. Choose the appropriate pipeline that published the artifact (typically your own pipeline).

By referencing the published artifact name and pipeline, you enable the downstream stage to download and utilize the compiled code.

4. Enforcing Order: Artifact Dependencies for Stage Execution

Artifact Dependencies:

• Allow you to define dependencies between stages based on published artifacts.
• A stage with an artifact dependency won't execute until the upstream stage successfully publishes the required artifact.

Configuring Artifact Dependencies:

1. Within your downstream stage editor, navigate to the "Depends on" section.
2. Choose "Job" and then select the upstream stage that publishes the required artifact.
3. Optionally, specify the artifact name within the dependency configuration for clearer visibility.

With artifact dependencies in place, you ensure that downstream stages only run after the upstream stage successfully publishes the needed build artifacts.

5. Benefits and Considerations

Benefits:

• Improved Build Pipelines: Streamlined pipelines through modularization and code reuse.
• Reduced Duplication: Avoid duplicating build steps across multiple stages.
• Clear Stage Relationships: Explicit dependencies define the execution order between stages.

Considerations:

• Versioning: Implement versioning for your published artifacts to manage compatibility between stages.
• Security: Restrict access to artifact feeds based on project roles or security groups.
• Error Handling: Implement error handling in downstream stages to gracefully handle situations where artifacts might not be available.

By effectively utilizing artifact sharing between stages in Azure DevOps Pipelines, you establish a modular and reusable approach to your build and deployment process. This promotes streamlined workflows, reduces code duplication, and ensures proper execution order based on artifact dependencies.