Release pipeline basics in Azure - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Release pipeline basics

📖 Scenario: You work in a software team that wants to automate the deployment of their web app. To do this, you will create a simple release pipeline in Azure DevOps. This pipeline will take the built app and deploy it to a test environment automatically.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic Azure DevOps release pipeline with one stage that deploys an app artifact to a test environment.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a release pipeline definition with a name

Add an artifact source named exactly 'drop'

Add a stage named exactly 'Test'

Configure the stage to deploy the artifact

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Release pipelines automate deploying software to environments, saving time and reducing errors.

💼 Career

Understanding release pipelines is essential for DevOps engineers and cloud infrastructure specialists to manage software delivery.

1

Create the release pipeline definition

Create a YAML variable called releasePipeline that defines a release pipeline with the name 'MyReleasePipeline' and an empty stages list.

Azure

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a Python dictionary with keys 'name', 'artifacts', and 'stages'.

2

Add an artifact source

Add an artifact to releasePipeline['artifacts'] with the exact name 'drop' and type 'Build'.

Azure

releasePipeline = {
    'name': 'MyReleasePipeline',
    'artifacts': [],
    'stages': []
}
# Add an artifact with name 'drop' and type 'Build' below

Need a hint?

Add a dictionary with keys 'alias' and 'type' inside the 'artifacts' list.

3

Add a deployment stage

Add a stage to releasePipeline['stages'] with the exact name 'Test' and a job that deploys the artifact named 'drop'.

Azure

releasePipeline = {
    'name': 'MyReleasePipeline',
    'artifacts': [
        {'alias': 'drop', 'type': 'Build'}
    ],
    'stages': []
}
# Add a stage named 'Test' with a deployment job for artifact 'drop' below

Need a hint?

The stage should have a 'jobs' list with one deployment job referencing the 'drop' artifact.

4

Complete the release pipeline configuration

Add a trigger key to releasePipeline with the value {'batch': False} to disable batch triggering.

Azure

releasePipeline = {
    'name': 'MyReleasePipeline',
    'artifacts': [
        {'alias': 'drop', 'type': 'Build'}
    ],
    'stages': [
        {
            'name': 'Test',
            'jobs': [
                {
                    'deployment': {
                        'artifactAlias': 'drop',
                        'environment': 'TestEnvironment'
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}
# Add a trigger key with batch set to false below

Need a hint?

The trigger key controls how releases start automatically.