build

Runners, Runners - Everywhere!

Hosted runners for Actions are great - but there are some scenarios where you’ll need self-hosted runners, such as deploying to private networks. But how can you effectively manage your self-hosted runners? In this post I’ll cover some thoughts. Continue reading Runners, Runners - Everywhere!

Consuming Environment Secrets in Reusable Workflows

One canonical use of reusable workflows is a reusable deployment job. While this is definitely possible with reusable workflows, it’s not easy to get it working. In this post I’ll show you how to do it. Continue reading Consuming Environment Secrets in Reusable Workflows

GitHub Actions: Authenticate to Azure Without a Secret using OIDC

Authenticating to Azure in GitHub Actions requires a secret for a Service Principal. However, at Universe, GitHub released a new OIDC-based authentication mechanism that eliminates the need for secrets in secure deployments. Continue reading GitHub Actions: Authenticate to Azure Without a Secret using OIDC

Enforcing Reusable Workflows for Standardization

Reusable workflows are great, but how do you ensure that teams are using your reusable workflows? In this post I show how you can structure repos, teams and environments to ensure standardization for your workflows. Continue reading Enforcing Reusable Workflows for Standardization

On Demand Ephemeral Self-Hosted Runners

Do you need to deploy to private VNets using GitHub Actions, but don’t want to have to keep self-hosted runners running all the time? In this post I show you how you can use Ephemeral Runners to create on-demand self-hosted runners. Continue reading On Demand Ephemeral Self-Hosted Runners

Musings on GitHub Actions Reusable Workflows

Newly released Reusable Workflows allows you to reuse workflows in your GitHub workflows. While this still has some limitations, it’s still better than copy/paste! Continue reading Musings on GitHub Actions Reusable Workflows

Azure Pipelines for Private AKS Clusters

Creating private AKS clusters is a good step in hardening your Azure Kubernetes clusters. In this post I walk through the steps you’ll need to follow to enable deployment to private AKS clusters. Continue reading Azure Pipelines for Private AKS Clusters

Azure Pipeline Parameters

In this post I dive into parameters for Azure Pipelines. Continue reading Azure Pipeline Parameters

Executing JMeter Tests in an Azure Pipeline

Visual Studio Load Testing tools have been deprecated, along with Cloud Load Testing. In this post I investigate how to use JMeter as a load testing alternative. Continue reading Executing JMeter Tests in an Azure Pipeline

Azure Pipeline Variables

In this post I take a deep dive into Azure Pipeline variables. Continue reading Azure Pipeline Variables

Azure DevOps Build and Test Reports using OData and REST in PowerBI

.NET Core Multi-Stage Dockerfile with Test and Code Coverage in Azure Pipelines

Managing Config for .NET Core Web App Deployments with Tokenizer and ReplaceTokens Tasks

End to End Walkthrough: Deploying Web Applications Using Team Build and Release Management

DacPac Change Report Task for VSTS Builds

Running the New DotNet Core VSTS Agent in a Docker Container

Continuous Deployment of Service Fabric Apps using VSTS (or TFS)

Building VS 2015 Setup Projects in Team Build

Config Per Environment vs Tokenization in Release Management

WebDeploy, Configs and Web Release Management

Continuous Deployment with Docker and Build vNext

Developing a Custom Build vNext Task: Part 1

Developing a Custom Build vNext Task: Part 2

Build vNext and SonarQube Runner: Dynamic Version Script

Release Management 2015 with Build vNext: Component to Artifact Name Matching and Other Fun Gotchas

Why You Should Switch to Build VNext

Matching Binary Version to Build Number Version in TFS 2013 Builds

Branch Is Not Equal to Environment: CODE-PROD Branching Strategy

Enabling JavaScript Code Coverage Link in Builds

Error Handling Poor Man’s RunScript in 2012 Builds

Build Script Hooks for TFS 2012 Builds

TFS 2013 Default Build – The GetEnvironmentVariable Activity

Fix: You Open TfcvTemplate.12.xaml and Don’t See Any Parameters

Why You Absolutely Need to Unit Test

Automated Builds–Why They’re Absolutely Essential (Part 2)

Automated Builds–Why They’re Absolutely Essential (Part 1)

Build Fails: Path Limit Exceeded

Failing Builds based on Code Coverage

Extending Hybrid Lab Workflow Virtual Hosts

Developing the Hybrid Lab Workflow

Hybrid Lab Workflow: Standard Lab Environment with Snapshots

Code Coverage doesn’t work with Fakes on Hosted Build

Build with a Hosted Build Controller: A First Attempt

Automating Office Tasks in a TeamBuild

Default Team Build to Invoke Instead of Build

Build-Deploy-Test Workflow for Physical Environments

Using Data Generation Plans to create repeatable data for code unit tests

Using Indexed Published Symbols from TeamBuilds

ClickOnce Versioning and Deployment in a TeamBuild

Running Data-Driven Unit Tests with SpreadSheets on Sharepoint

Running DB Data Generation and Unit Tests in TeamBuild 2010