Set up a CI build

Your team can minimize errors and increase quality by integrating the code as frequently as possible and then building and testing the result. You can define a build process to support this strategy, known as continuous integration (CI). After this is done, you and your team can determine as quickly as possible that a check-in has broken the build or caused a test to fail.

• Define a build process to support continuous integration

• Improve the function and performance of the build process

• Take next steps

• Dig deeper

Define a Build Process to Support Continuous Integration

1. In Team Explorer, make sure you are connected to the team project (Keyboard: Ctrl + 0, C), and then open the Builds page (Keyboard: Ctrl + 0, B).

2. Choose the New Build Definition link or select a build, open its context menu, and choose Edit Build Definition.

   Tip

   If a TF225001 error message appears, configure a build controller.

3. On the Trigger tab, choose Continuous Integration.

   Tip

   If your developers have to wait too long for their check-ins to build, you might want to choose Rolling builds instead. This trigger causes the build system to build multiple check-ins together. See Use the Rolling builds trigger.

4. On the Source Settings tab:

   • TFVC: In the Working folders table, specify the version-control folders that contain the files that your build process requires.

     Tip

     To ensure that your build process functions correctly and to improve performance, include all folders, and only these folders, that contain files that your build process requires. For more information about how to specify these folders, see Work with build workspaces.

   • Git: In the Monitored branches list, specify the repository and the branches that contain the files that your build process requires. You can use wildcards. For example, you could specify refs/heads/feature* to monitor the refs/heads/featureA and refs/heads/featureB branches.

5. To improve performance, on the Build Defaults tab, choose This build does not copy output files to a drop folder.

6. On the Process tab, in the Build process parameters table under Build, specify the solutions or code projects that you want to build.

7. On the Process tab, set the build process parameters to ensure that check-ins meet the specific standards of code quality for your team without delaying your developers unnecessarily.

   For more information, see Improve build process function and performance later in this topic.

8. Specify build process options on the other tabs. For more information, see Create or edit a build definition.

Improve build process function and performance

To minimize the time that is required to process the build, you should consider following these guidelines when you specify values for the build process parameters on the Process tab.

TF Version Control or Git

• Clean workspace or Clean repository: For faster performance, set this value to False. This setting might cause your team to miss some types of defects, such as those introduced during refactoring.

Build

• Configurations: If you leave this parameter empty, the default platform and configuration is used for each solution and project. To optimize performance, adhere to the following guidelines:

  • If a platform-configuration pair builds more quickly than other pairs, specify it in this parameter.

  • Specify as few platform-configuration pairs as possible.

• Clean build For faster performance, set this parameter to False. This setting might cause your team to miss some types of defects, such as those introduced during refactoring.

Build, Advanced

• Perform Code Analysis: For faster performance, set this value to Never.

Test, Advanced

• Disable tests:

  • For faster performance, select True.

  • If your code must pass certain tests, select False, and then define a set of tests to run in the build. You can improve performance by running only the tests that you require. To designate those tests, filter them by either category or priority. For more information, see Run tests in your build process.

Publish Symbols

• Path to publish symbols: For faster performance, leave this value empty.

Advanced

• Agent Settings

  • Name Filter –or– Tags Filter: Use either a build agent name or a tag to bind this build definition to a build agent that is designed specifically for running this build. The build agent should run on hardware that is sufficiently powerful to process this build quickly enough to meet your team's performance expectations.

  • Maximum Execution Time: Set this value to a reasonably small number. For example, 15 minutes might work for your team, but eight hours is probably too long.

For more information about Default Template build process parameters, see Use the Default Template for your build process.

Try this next

• Make sure everyone on your team checks in (TFVC) or pushes (Git version control) early and often.

• Run tests in your build process

Dig deeper

• Set up build notifications if you want to be notified when a CI build is completed.

• Use a gated check-in build process to validate changes if you want to block check-ins that would break the build or fail your tests.