Variable Group Creation using API in Azure Devops

Question

I am trying to create a variable group in an Azure DevOps project using the REST APIs and Python scripting. The API used is:

`POST https://dev.azure.com/{organization}/_apis/distributedtask/variablegroups?api-version=7.0`

The payload in use is attached:

`vargroup_data = {
            "name": "MyVariableGroup",
            "description": "This is my variable group",
            "type": "Vsts",
            "variables": {
                "myVariable": {
                "value": "myValue",
                "isSecret": False
                },
                "myPublicVariable": {
                "value": "myPublicValue",
                "isSecret": False
                }
            },
            "variableGroupProjectReferences": {
                "projectReference": {
                    "id": project_id,
                    "name": project
                }
            }
        }`

I am receiving an error: Failed to create variable group.

`Status code: 500

Response: {"$id":"1","innerException":null,"message":"Atleast one variable group project reference is required.","typeName":"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.DistributedTask.Server.Exceptions.InvalidRequestException,Microsoft.TeamFoundation.DistributedTask.Server","typeKey":"InvalidRequestException","errorCode":0,"eventId":3000}`

What might be the problem here?

The intended output was a new variable group being created in the project.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 31 '23 at 12:35

With this payload I created Variable Group

{
  "variables": {
    "ConnectionString": {
      "value": "YourConnectionString",
      "isSecret": true
    },
    "APIKey": {
      "value": "YourAPIKey",
      "isSecret": true
    },
    "Environment": {
      "value": "Production"
    }
  },
  "variableGroupProjectReferences": [
    {
      "name": "NewVariableGroup",
      "projectReference": {
        "id": "kmadej",
        "name": "kmadej"
      }
    }
  ],
  "name": "NewVariableGroup",
  "description": "Description of your variable group"
}

Here is the part of the response I got

  "id": 4,
    "type": "Vsts",
    "name": "NewVariableGroup",
    "description": "Description of your variable group",
    "createdBy": {
        "displayName": null,
        "id": "5123c05b-58f3-6001-ad47-f3f723127d84"
    },
    "createdOn": "2023-08-31T12:32:18.6066667Z",
    "modifiedBy": {
        "displayName": null,
        "id": "5123c05b-58f3-6001-ad47-f3f723127d84"
    },

Could you upvote my reply if it was helfpul? – Krzysztof Madej Sep 01 '23 at 12:12 — Krzysztof Madej, Sep 01 '23 at 12:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 01 '23 at 12:10

vargroup_data = {
            "description": "This is a test variable group",
            "name": "test_group",
            "providerData": None,
            "type": "Vsts",
            "variables": {"ResourceGroupLocation": {
                "isSecret": False,
                "value": "location_name"
            },
            "ResourceGroupName": {
                "isSecret": False,
                "value": "resourcegroup_name"
            }}, 
            "variableGroupProjectReferences": [{
                "description": "This is a test variable group",
                "name": "test_group",
                "projectReference": {
                    "id": self.project_id,
                    "name": self.project
                }
            }]
        }

I was able to create the variable group by modifying the payload to this. Hope this will be helpful to someone in the future.

Variable Group Creation using API in Azure Devops

2 Answers2