Links

Definitions

Term	Definition
Artifact	item from a git repository or a build pipeline
Stages	steps to deploy and validate a software a stage contains jobs
Job	subparts of a stage, contains tasks to execute listed as steps a job runs on a agent or can be manually ran
Tasks / Steps	subparts of a job, those are the concreate action to execute
Release pipeline definition	steps to execute to get the artefacts, install and validate the software template to run a release
Release agent	the one who execute the tasks defined in the release pipeline definition it is the same agent as the one used for the build

Release variables

Predefined variables

YAML

Links

Exemple

# do not trigger the pipeline on events
trigger: none

parameters:
- name: myStepList
  type: stepList
  default:
    - bash: echo "We are on $(MyVar)"

stages:
- stage: CI
  displayName: CI stage
  # remove implicite depency on the previous stage, the stages will run in parallel
  dependsOn: []
  jobs:
  - job: ci_job
    variables:
      MyVar: 'CI'
    steps:
    - bash: echo "We are on CI"
    - task: PowerShell@2
      displayName: 'PowerShell Script'
      inputs:
        targetType: filePath
        filePath: './$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/Folder/Script.ps1'
        arguments: '-Arg1 "$(MyVar)"'
      # disable the task
      enabled: false

- stage: DEMO
  displayName: DEMO stage
  dependsOn: []
  jobs:
  # use deployment job with environment and strategy to use the approval mechanism
  - deployment: demo_job
    environment: DEMO
    variables:
      MyVar: 'DEMO'
    strategy:
      runOnce:
        deploy:
          steps: ${{ parameters.myStepList }}

Steps of a release

Build the software with a pipeline
- validate product quality (unit tests, SonarCloud)
Deploy the software
- validate runtime stability (compare telemetry with previous version)
Release the feature
- validate feature usage