Azure DevOps Multi-Stage Pipelines Stuck Waiting for Approvals

Question

I'm using hosted Azure DevOps with our code in Azure Git Repos. We used to use the "Classic" UI-based pipeline editor, but are moving to YAML templates for our build/release stages.

In the past I configured CI/CD so that when code is committed to the master branch via a pull request, it would fire off a build and then a Development deployment. The other release stages would wait for approval before the code moved to that stage. A new release would cancel any previous releases that haven't been deployed to their respective environments.

With YAML deployment stages what I'm finding is that when the master branch triggers a build, it deploys to the Development environment, but the pipeline is stuck in a waiting state because the other stages haven't been approved. As a result, the run isn't marked as "complete", and eventually the other stages will time out and be marked as failed. Additionally, previous runs of the pipeline are not cancelled, so multiple runs are stacked up in a waiting state.

Ideally what I'd like to see is that a new build will cancel all previous runs of the pipeline. I'd like to see the run marked as "complete" once it deploys to Development, and be able to deploy to other stages manually after the fact.

Has anybody else out there wanted to do the same thing? Am I just thinking about this all wrong and should be doing it a different way?

Answer 1

Manually deploy to stages is not support in yaml pipeline currently. Please check this open issue.

You can try adding dependsOn and condition for each stage. For below example yaml pipeline. Stage Build will start to run only after stage Start successfully complete, Then Stage Build will wait for approval, Stage Release willnot be triggered until Stage Build is approved and successfully finished.

You can define the pr trigger and set autocancel=true (the default is true)to cancel previous runs if new changes were pushed to the same pr.

The batch property for trigger can achieve a similar effect. It will not start a new run if the current pr in still in building.

trigger:
  batch: boolean # batch changes if true (the default); start a new build for every push if false
  branches:
    include:

_

pr:
  autoCancel: true
  branches:
    include:
    - master

stages:
- stage: Start
  jobs:
    - job: A
      pool:
        vmImage: windows-latest
      steps:
      - powershell: |
          echo "i am job a"

- stage: Build
  dependsOn: Start
  condition: succeeded()
  jobs:
  - deployment: Dev
    displayName: deploy Web App
    pool:
      vmImage: 'Ubuntu-16.04'
  # creates an environment if it doesn't exist
    environment: 'Dev'
    strategy:
    # default deployment strategy, more coming...
      runOnce:
        deploy:
          steps:
          - script: echo "i am dev environment"


- stage: Release
  dependsOn: Build
  condition: succeeded()
  jobs:
  - deployment: Environ
    displayName: deploy Web App
    pool:
      vmImage: 'Ubuntu-16.04'
  # creates an environment if it doesn't exist
    environment: 'Environment'
    strategy:
    # default deployment strategy, more coming...
      runOnce:
        deploy:
          steps:
          - script: echo "i am Environment environment"

Update: Cancel in progress builds via powershell scripts.

You can add a powershell task at the top of your pipeline to call build api. Below scripts get all the in progress builds and cancel them except current build.

- task: PowerShell@2

      inputs:
        targetType: inline
        script: |

          $header = @{ Authorization = "Bearer $(system.accesstoken)" }
          $buildsUrl = "$(System.TeamFoundationCollectionUri)$(System.TeamProject)/_apis/build/builds?api-version=5.1"
          echo $buildsUrl
          $builds = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $buildsUrl -Method Get -Header $header

          $buildsToStop = $builds.value.Where({ ($_.status -eq 'inProgress') -and ($_.definition.name -eq "$(Build.DefinitionName)") -and ($_.id -ne $(Build.BuildId))})

          ForEach($build in $buildsToStop)
          {
            echo $build.id
            $build.status = "cancelling"
            $body = $build | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 10
            $urlToCancel = "$(System.TeamFoundationCollectionUri)$(System.TeamProject)/_apis/build/builds/$($build.id)?api-version=5.1"
            echo $urlToCancel
            Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $urlToCancel -Method Patch -ContentType application/json -Body $body -Header $header
          }

In order your pipeline to have the permission to cancel the current running build. You need go to your pipeline, click on the 3dots and choose Manage security

Then set the Stop builds permission to Allow for user Project Collection Build Service(projectName),