Manually triggered stages in Azure Devops YAML Pipelines

Question

I'd like to recreate a pipeline that looks something like this in YAML.

I have successfully recreated the first line (A) pipeline. A combination of dependsOn, environmentName, and environment approvals handles that. However, there doesn't seem to be a way to create the B and C pipelines in YAML.

I've seen several similar questions, but most were not quite what I was looking for or were very old had no solution. I suspect this isn't possible right now but wanted to ask to be sure.

Not get your response for several days, would you please share your latest information about this issue? If you have any concern, feel free to share it here. — Hugh Lin, Jul 09 '20 at 09:08

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 01 '20 at 17:04

3

Put an approval in front of the first environment. It won't trigger until it's approved. That's as close as you're going to get right now.

answered Jul 01 '20 at 17:04

Daniel Mann

57,011
13
100
120

2

So then it is either always running or failed. There is no way to have a successful pipeline that doesn't run every stage. – drs9222 Jul 01 '20 at 17:23

starian chen-MSFT · Answer 2 · 2020-07-10T11:10:51.663

1

You could control it per to the parameters, for example:

parameters:
- name: stageTest
  displayName: Run Stage test
  type: boolean
  default: false

trigger:
  - none

variables:      # pipeline-level
  system.debug: true

stages:
- stage: Build
  jobs:
  - job: Build
    steps:
    - script: echo "hello to my first Build"
- stage: Test
  dependsOn:
    - Build
  jobs:
  - job: Test
    steps:
    - script: echo "test"
- ${{ if eq(parameters.stageTest, true) }}: 
  - stage: B1
    dependsOn: []
    jobs:
    - job: B1
      steps:
      - script: echo "B1"
  - stage: B2
    dependsOn:
    - B1
    jobs:
    - job: B2
      steps:
      - script: echo "B2"

The parameter is stageTest and you could set the value (check or uncheck) when queue pipepeline.

On the other hand, you also could skip stage when run pipeline: Skipping stages in a YAML pipeline

edited Jul 10 '20 at 11:10

answered Jul 10 '20 at 10:42

starian chen-MSFT

33,174
2
29
53

2

That would remove the CI part of the pipeline and require me to know in advance which stages should be executed. – drs9222 Jul 10 '20 at 15:57
@drs9222 I am not clear what you mean. Which CI part is removed? On the other hand, what's the result if you skip some stages when run pipeline? – starian chen-MSFT Jul 13 '20 at 07:35
it removes the initial trigger requiring me to manually run builds after every commit. – drs9222 Jul 14 '20 at 01:29
@drs9222 You can change trigger value to enable CI part, but it uses default parameter value. – starian chen-MSFT Jul 14 '20 at 07:26
yes you can, but that effectively removes the ability to control what executes putting me back at square one. – drs9222 Jul 14 '20 at 20:45
It seems that there isn't the better way to do it. – starian chen-MSFT Jul 15 '20 at 10:02

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 02 '20 at 05:28

I am afraid that it is currently impossible to implement the manually triggered stage like the UI of release pipeline in YAML pipeline.

At present, the function of specifying the stage to run is provided in yaml, but this only applies to manually triggered pipelines and cannot deploy the manual stage at any time as in the release pipleine.

According to your flow chart, you want your pipeline start with CI and keep the independence of manual stages will not affect the running of the pipeline. Splitting stages into multiple yaml pipelines should not be what you want, so you can follow the uservoice and vote for this ticket to look forward to the release of new features.

That's what I had found as well. I had already voted on that but it's been over a year and no word on that. I'm just hoping someone has a clever workaround or that something else had been done that wasn't listed there. — drs9222, Jul 10 '20 at 16:04

Manually triggered stages in Azure Devops YAML Pipelines

3 Answers3