Configure run or build numbers

TFS 2018

Note

Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2018 and earlier versions have the following differences in naming:

• Pipelines for build and release are called definitions
• Runs are called builds
• Service connections are called service endpoints
• Stages are called environments
• Jobs are called phases

You can customize how your pipeline runs are numbered. The default value for run number is $(Date:yyyyMMdd).$(Rev:r).

In Azure DevOps $(Rev:r) is a special variable format that only works in the build number field. When a build is completed, if nothing else in the build number has changed, the Rev integer value increases by one.

$(Rev:r) resets when you change part of the build number. For example, if you've configured your build number format as $(Build.DefinitionName)_$(Date:yyyyMMdd).$(Rev:r), then the build number will reset when the date changes the next day. If your build number is MyBuild_20230621.1, the next build number that day is MyBuild_20230621.2. The next day, the build number is MyBuild_20230622.1.

If your build number format is 1.0.$(Rev:r), then the build number resets to 1.0.1 when you change part of the number. For example, if your last build number was 1.0.3, and you change the build number to 1.1.$(Rev:r) to indicate a version change, the next build number is 1.1.1.

YAML

YAML builds aren't yet available on TFS.

Classic

If you leave this field blank, your completed build is given a unique integer as its name. But you can give completed builds much more useful names that are meaningful to your team. You can use a combination of tokens, variables, and underscore characters.

Example

At the time, a run is started:

• Project name: Fabrikam

• Pipeline name: CIBuild

• Branch: main

• Build ID/Run ID: 752

• Date: May 5, 2019.

• Time: 9:07:03 PM.

• One run completed earlier today.

If you specify this build number format:

$(TeamProject)_$(Build.DefinitionName)_$(SourceBranchName)_$(Date:yyyyMMdd).$(Rev:.r)

Then the second run on this day would be named: Fabrikam_CIBuild_main_20190505.2

Tokens

The following table shows how each token is resolved based on the previous example. You can use these tokens only to define a run number; they don't work anywhere else in your pipeline.

Token	Example replacement value
$(Build.DefinitionName)	CIBuild Note: The pipeline name must not contain invalid or whitespace characters.
$(Build.BuildId)	752 $(Build.BuildId) is an internal immutable ID that is also referred to as the Run ID. It's unique across the organization.
$(DayOfMonth)	5
$(DayOfYear)	217
$(Hours)	21
$(Minutes)	7
$(Month)	8
$(Rev:r)	2 (The third run is 3, and so on.) Use $(Rev:r) to ensure that every completed build has a unique name. When a build starts, if nothing else in the build number has changed, the Rev integer value is incremented by one. If you want to show prefix zeros in the number, you can add more 'r' characters. For example, specify $(Rev:rr) if you want the Rev number to begin with 01, 02, and so on. If you use a zero-padded Rev as part of a version numbering scheme, note that some pipeline tasks or popular tools, like NuGet packages, remove the leading zeros, which cause a version number mismatch in the artifacts that are produced.
$(Date:yyyyMMdd)	20090824 You can specify other date formats such as $(Date:MMddyy)
$(Seconds)	3
$(SourceBranchName)	main
$(TeamProject)	Fabrikam
$(Year:yy)	09
$(Year:yyyy)	2009

Variables

You can also use user-defined and predefined variables that have a scope of "All" in your number. For example, if you've defined My.Variable, you could specify the following number format:

$(Build.DefinitionName)_$(Build.DefinitionVersion)_$(Build.RequestedFor)_$(Build.BuildId)_$(My.Variable)

The first four variables are predefined. My.Variable is defined by you on the variables tab.

Expressions

If you use an expression to set the build number, you can't use some tokens because their values aren't set at the time expressions are evaluated. These tokens include $(Build.BuildId), $(Build.BuildURL), and $(Build.BuildNumber).

FAQ

How large can a run number be and what characters can I use?

Runs may be up to 255 characters. Characters that aren't allowed include ", /, :, <, >, ', |, ?, @, and *. You can't end with a ..

In what time zone are the build number time values expressed?

The time zone is the same as the time zone of the operating system of the machine where you're running your application tier server.