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The requirements on the following page state that you need to install Visual Studio with Xamarin on your local TFS server to setup Xamarin CI builds: https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/cross-platform/ci/intro_to_ci/ topography of the CI

This is a real pain. We have lots of developers that rely on our local TFS server, most of whom don't do any Xamarin development. As such, any changes are heavily scrutinized. This often leads to us not installing the latest VS/Xamarin releases, as it's considered too risky for this vital bit of infrastructure.

We could have a Windows build machine with VS and Xamarin installed, that is connected to a Mac build machine. We'd be free to update the Windows and Mac build machines regularly, without the fear of compromising the TFS server. Is this possible? If not, why not?

Thanks in advance.

Barbara
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  • I just watched [this Xamarin Guest Lecture](https://university.xamarin.com/guestlectures/app-store-automation-with-fastlane) talking about using [fastlane](https://fastlane.tools/) along with [cake](http://cakebuild.net/) to build Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android apps automatically. So you could configure TFS to use either fastlane (via cake) or use cake directly to build the app for you. Though it is not something I have ever tried doing myself. Cake even has special TFS integration [here](https://github.com/cake-build/cake-vso). – hvaughan3 May 08 '17 at 15:06

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That diagram can't be right. There is no reason why you'd need VS or Xamarin installed on your TFS app tier.

I think it's showing a simplified configuration where the Windows build agent is installed alongside the app tier. That is a supported setup but is never, ever recommended by anyone, for exactly the reasons why you don't want to do it.

Daniel Mann
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The diagram is simplified. You don't need to install anything on your TFS server. What you do instead is to install a Build Agent on a separate machine or virtual machine.

The installation details for the TFS 2017 / VSTS build agent v2 can be found in the official visual studio documentation.

The procedure is similar for both TFS and VSTS, where you generate an access token in TFS/VSTS, then simply enter the url for the TFS/VSTS instance when running the build agent install script, along with the access token.

There are build agents for Windows, Linux and macOS, so it is up to you how you configure how iOS builds are made.

Cheesebaron
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