Have you ever created a new project and had code and pipelines and such ready to go, but still need to manually create the pipelines in Azure DevOps? Annoying, right? The flow is so simple it does not allow you to select folders or name your pipelines. This post will show you how to create Azure Pipelines using PowerShell.

And if thats possible, why not automate more, like giving permissions to the pipelines and creating branchpolices? Let’s dive in!

Solution

To script the code i am using a mix of the Az CLI and the Azure DevOps REST API. The Az CLI is used to get the repo id and getting the authorization token. The REST API is used to create the pipeline, and more. Enough talk, let’s get to the code.

Also make sure the azure-devops extension is installed.

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az extension add --name azure-devops

Getting access

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$accessToken = az account get-access-token --resource 499b84ac-1321-427f-aa17-267ca6975798 --query "accessToken" -o tsv
if($null -eq $accessToken) {
    Write-Host "Could not get access token"
    exit 1
}

$headers = @{
    "Authorization"  = "Bearer $accessToken"
    "Content-Type"   = "application/json"
}

Getting the repo id

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$repoName = "MyRepo"
$projectName = "MyProject"

$repo = az repos list --project $projectName --query "[?name=='$repoName']" -o json
if($null -eq $repo) {
    Write-Host "Could not find repo"
    exit 1
}
$repoId = $repo.id
Write-Host "Repo id is $repoId"

Creating the pipeline

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# $headers and $repoId are already set from earlier samples
# Create a new pipeline
$projectName = "MyProject"
$repoName = "MyRepo"
$branchName = "main"
$yamlPath = "path/to/your/pipeline.yaml"

$uri = "https://dev.azure.com/your-org/$projectName/_apis/pipelines?api-version=7.1-preview.1"
$body = @{
    folder = "\\"
    name = "MyPipeline"
    configuration = @{
        path = $yamlPath
        repository = @{
            id = $repoId
            type = "azureReposGit"
            name = $repoName
            defaultBranch = $branchName
        }
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json

$pipelineId = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Method Post -Headers $headers -Body $body -ContentType "application/json"
Write-Host "Pipeline created with id $($pipelineId.id)"

Giving permissions

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# $headers and $repoId and $pipelineId are already set from earlier samples
# Give permissions to the pipeline
$projectName = "MyProject"
$repoName = "MyRepo"
$pipelineId = "MyPipelineId"

$uri = "https://dev.azure.com/your-org/$projectName/_apis/pipelines/$pipelineId/permissions?api-version=7.1-preview.1"
$body = @{
    resource = @{
        id = $pipelineId
        type = "pipeline"
    }
    role = "roleName"
    roleAssignment = @{
        principal = @{
            id = "principalId"
            descriptor = "principalDescriptor"
        }
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 6

$permission = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Method Post -Headers $headers -Body $body -ContentType "application/json"
Write-Host "Permission created with id $($permission.id)"

Setting the branch policy

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# $headers and $repoId and $pipelineId are already set from earlier samples
# Give the default branch a policy
$projectName = "MyProject"
$repoName = "MyRepo"
$branchName = "main"

$uri = "https://dev.azure.com/your-org/$projectName/_apis/policy/configurations?api-version=7.1-preview.1"
$body = @{
    isEnabled = $true
    isBlocking = $true
    type = @{
        id = "0609b952-1397-4640-95ec-e00a01b2c241"
    }
    settings = @{
        buildDefinitionId = $pipelineId
        queueOnSourceUpdate = $true
        displayName = "THE CODE SHOULD BUILD"
        scope = @{
            refName = "refs/heads/$branchName"
            matchKind = "exact"
            repositoryId = $repoId
        }
    }
} | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 6

$policy = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Method Post -Headers $headers -Body $body -ContentType "application/json"
Write-Host "Policy created with id $($policy.id)"

Conclusion and discussion

Having a script do the work can help you deliver consistent pipelines and policies. It can also help you to automate the creation of pipelines and policies in a new project. This can be useful when you have a lot of projects to manage.

I will continue on this topic in a later blogpost using a different view. But as an addition to these scripts.

Let’s automate more together!

Solution#

Getting access#

Getting the repo id#

Creating the pipeline#

Giving permissions#

Setting the branch policy#

Conclusion and discussion#