How to skip build when merging a small change to main branch in Azure DevOps?

Question

How to skip build when merging a small change to main branch in Azure DevOps?

Vivian Glen 20

A feature branch is ready for merging into the main branch, but the change is minimal (just a documentation update and two lines added in azure-pipeline.yml). Is there a way to skip the build pipeline when creating a pull request for this merge?

Gaurav Kumar 380 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-24T09:06:25.5366667+00:00

Hi @Vivian Glen ,

Just wanted to check—did the answer from the other community member help resolve your issue? If not, I can post a detailed answer that might help. Let me know!

Vivian Glen 20

The pipeline is still doing a build when I create a PR even after adding the [skip ci] commit message.
I am not sure where the issue is
The azure-pipeline.yml looks something like this

---
trigger:
  branches:
    include:
      - main
      
variables:
- group: 
- group: 
- group: 
- name: varGroupId
  value: 
- name: lVersion
  value: 


resources:
  repositories:
  - repository: xyz_templates
    type: git
    name: project_name/repo_name
    ref: refs/heads/main

extends:
  template: terraform/terraform_module.yml@xyz_templates
  parameters:
    jobTimeoutInMinutes:
    lastVersion:

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Your answer

Gaurav Kumar 380 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-04-24T09:06:25.5366667+00:00

Hi @Vivian Glen ,

Just wanted to check—did the answer from the other community member help resolve your issue? If not, I can post a detailed answer that might help. Let me know!
Vivian Glen 20 Reputation points

2025-04-24T13:58:06.9033333+00:00

The pipeline is still doing a build when I create a PR even after adding the [skip ci] commit message.
I am not sure where the issue is
The azure-pipeline.yml looks something like this

--- trigger: branches: include: - main variables: - group: - group: - group: - name: varGroupId value: - name: lVersion value: resources: repositories: - repository: xyz_templates type: git name: project_name/repo_name ref: refs/heads/main extends: template: terraform/terraform_module.yml@xyz_templates parameters: jobTimeoutInMinutes: lastVersion:

Answer 1

Divyesh Govaerdhanan 4,515

Hello,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A,

You can also tell Azure Pipelines to skip running a pipeline that a push would normally trigger. Just include [skip ci] in the message or description of any of the commits that are part of a push, and Azure Pipelines will skip running CI for this push. You can also use any of the following variations.

[skip ci] or [ci skip]
skip-checks: true or skip-checks:true
[skip azurepipelines] or [azurepipelines skip]
[skip azpipelines] or [azpipelines skip]
[skip azp] or [azp skip]
***NO_CI***

Consideration:

The [skip ci] or [ci skip] keywords must be present in the most recent commit for the skip to take effect.
This only works if the trigger in your azure-pipelines.yml includes something like:

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
      - main

And your PR is targeting that trigger branch (main, for example).

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/repos/azure-repos-git?view=azure-devops&tabs=yaml#skipping-ci-for-individual-pushes

Please Upvote and Accept the answer if it helps!!

Divyesh Govaerdhanan 4,515 Reputation points

2025-04-29T21:59:23.3666667+00:00
@Vivian Glen ,

Azure Pipelines doesn't automatically honor [skip ci] unless you explicitly configure it.

It only supports [skip ci] / [ci skip] if you configure the triggers properly. You must include pr and trigger handling correctly.

In your YAML, I see: You are triggering on main. But you did not define the pr: block, so PR triggers are automatic and cannot be skipped.

How Azure Pipelines understands [skip ci]

For [skip ci] to work:

You must have either trigger or pr defined in your YAML.

Azure DevOps automatically reads [skip ci] or [ci skip] from commit messages only when PR validation or builds are triggered based on YAML triggers.

If you don't explicitly define pr:, then Azure DevOps assumes "validate all PRs by default" and [skip ci] gets ignored.

trigger: branches: include: - main pr: branches: include: - main

Azure DevOps will properly parse [skip ci] From your PR commits, when you define the pr block correctly,

In order for the skip ci to work, the branch policy for the build validation should also be removed.

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How to skip build when merging a small change to main branch in Azure DevOps?

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