Introduction

Azure Boards helps teams organize and track their work using tasks, bugs, and features. It solves the problem of keeping everyone on the same page about what needs to be done and what is done.

When you want to track progress on software development tasks with your team.

When you need to report bugs and assign them to team members.

When you want to plan sprints and releases in an organized way.

When you want to visualize work using boards and charts.

When you want to link code changes to work items for better traceability.

Commands

This command creates a new Azure DevOps project named 'example-project' in the specified organization. A project is needed to start tracking work items in Azure Boards.

Terminal

az boards project create --name example-project --organization https://dev.azure.com/exampleorg

Expected OutputExpected

Create project request accepted. Project 'example-project' is being created.

→

--name - Specifies the name of the new project.

→

--organization - Specifies the Azure DevOps organization URL.

This command creates a new work item of type Task with the title 'Setup development environment' in the 'example-project'. Work items represent units of work to track.

Terminal

az boards work-item create --title "Setup development environment" --type Task --project example-project --organization https://dev.azure.com/exampleorg

Expected OutputExpected

Work item 1 created.

→

--title - Sets the title of the work item.

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--type - Specifies the type of work item, e.g., Task, Bug, Feature.

→

--project - Specifies the project where the work item is created.

This command shows details of the work item with ID 1 to verify it was created correctly.

Terminal

az boards work-item show --id 1 --project example-project --organization https://dev.azure.com/exampleorg

Expected OutputExpected

ID: 1 Title: Setup development environment State: New Type: Task Assigned To: Unassigned

→

--id - Specifies the ID of the work item to show.

This command updates the work item with ID 1 to set its state to Active and assign it to a user. This shows how to change work item status and ownership.

Terminal

az boards work-item update --id 1 --state Active --assigned-to user@example.com --project example-project --organization https://dev.azure.com/exampleorg

Expected OutputExpected

Work item 1 updated.

→

--state - Changes the state of the work item.

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--assigned-to - Assigns the work item to a user.

This command lists all work items in the project to see the current tasks and their states.

Terminal

az boards work-item list --project example-project --organization https://dev.azure.com/exampleorg

Expected OutputExpected

ID Title State 1 Setup development environment Active

Key Concept

If you remember nothing else from this pattern, remember: Azure Boards lets you create, update, and track work items to organize your team's work clearly.

Common Mistakes

Not specifying the --project flag when creating or updating work items.

Azure CLI needs to know which project to apply the work item commands to, otherwise it fails.

Always include --project with the exact project name in your commands.

Using incorrect work item types like 'task' instead of 'Task' (case sensitive).

Work item types are case sensitive and must match Azure Boards types exactly.

Use the exact work item type names with correct capitalization, e.g., Task, Bug, Feature.

Forgetting to set the organization URL with --organization flag.

The CLI needs to know which Azure DevOps organization to connect to.

Always provide the full organization URL with --organization in every command.

Summary

Create an Azure DevOps project to start tracking work items.

Use az boards work-item create to add tasks, bugs, or features.

Update work items to change their state or assign them to team members.

List and show work items to monitor progress and details.