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We're using Visual Studio Team Services with Git as the source control system and I've configured a build which executes successfully online. Ideally I'd like to:

  1. After building the site in VSO, precompile and dump the aspx and .dll files to the git repository
  2. On the on-premises web server, pull from git and move to our staging site

The second part I can figure out on my own, but the documentation for VSTeam seems sketchy on how to dump the compiled sources to git. I've kept the default build configration almost the same as the default with the exception of a Powershell script which is supposed to create artifacts for the drop. Despite this, the drop.zip file create is empty.

The following is how my build definition is set up in VSO.

VSO Build Definition

jessehouwing
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Echilon
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2 Answers2

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Instead of the PowerShell script, you'd be able to use the "Copy and Publish artefacts" and have it create a specific artefact with the specific bits you need:

enter image description here

This will automatically create a named build artefact which you can then use from Release Management as an input.

The PowerShell script was used in the XAML builds when used with the "Project Output | As Configured" option.

To create your "packaged" website, you need to add a couple of parameters to the MsBuild/Visual Studio Build step to instrict the compiler to package your website:

/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:DeployTarget=Package 
/p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageAsSingleFile=false
/p:AspNetCompileMerge=true

Optionally you can configure your target directory as well using

/p:PackageLocation="$(Build.BinariesDirectory)\Published"

If you do this, you need to configure this directory as your copy root in the copy and publish task.

jessehouwing
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  • This is the closest I've come so far - the directory is created and a PowerShell script from the repo root is copied. I can't see any reference to it in the documentation, but I have a feeling an extra deployment project is needed as well as the web site. – Echilon Jul 07 '16 at 08:24
  • You need to add a couple of msbuild parameters to enable packaging in build. – jessehouwing Jul 07 '16 at 08:33
  • The build succeeds now, but the compiled files are nowhere to be seen. – Echilon Jul 07 '16 at 09:38
  • Can you post the msbuild logs? It should tell us where files are dropped. – jessehouwing Jul 07 '16 at 09:40
  • You should be able to execute the MsBuild command locally with no involvement of VSTS. If the folder is created there, you're ready to move it to VSTS and solve the variables/folder issues that may occur. Basically you need to fix the MsBuild parts first. – jessehouwing Jul 07 '16 at 09:51
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I did a quick look at the Power-Shell script, there are two issues with it:

  1. It still use the variables like "$Env:TF_BUILD_SOURCESDIRECTORY" which does not exist in VSTS(VSO). See Variables for VSTS.
  2. It copies the files from "BUILD_SOURCESDIRECTORY" folder to "BUILD_BINARIESDIRECTORY". But the "Publish Build Artifacts" step in your definition publish the files in "BUILD_ARTIFACTSTAGINGDIRECTORY" folder.

So if you want to use this script, you need to update the script to remove the "TF_" string in the variables and update the "Publish Build Artifacts" step to publish the files in "BUILD_BINARIESDIRECTORY" folder(Set Path to Publish to: $(Build.BinariesDirectory)).

However, if you want to copy and publish the website files, you can simply add one more argument in "MSBuild Arguments" section of "Visual Studio Build" step:

"/p:outdir=$(build.artifactstagingdirectory)"

Remove the Power-Shell script step and the other steps just keep default settings.

Or you can also change the settings of "Copy Files" steps to select the files/folders you'd like to copy.

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Eddie Chen - MSFT
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