Configure YAML Pipeline Using YAML templates in Remote Repo in Azure DevOps

While we are configuring CI/CD pipelines for team projects there can be requirements to configure many CI/CD pipelines. If we could maintain set of CI/CD pipeline templates, it would be very helpful when configuring extensive number of pipelines. In this blog, we are going to discuss how to configure a pipeline when the YAML pipeline templates and YAML pipeline are in two different Azure DevOps repos. Further, you would be able to learn how to build a web app code base in third repo in same team pipeline.

Pre requisites: 

                * Repo containing Web App code 

                * Repo containing YAML CI/CD templates 

                * Repo to create YAML pipeline 

In this sample we use three Repos in same Azure DevOps team project. Team project name and repo names defined as follows.

WebbApp - Azure DevOps team project name

Template - Name of the repo which maintain YAML pipeline templates

ASPApp - Name of the repo which has the YAML pipeline

WebbApp - Name of the repo which has core web app code

We can define a Azure DevOps YAML pipeline to build the core app as explained in following YAML script. Let's discuss  each section of the full pipeline script to get proper understanding about how to refer resources in remote repos.

variables are defined in the Azure DevOps library  called "webapp" and script refer the library values.

      variables:
        - group: webapp

Provide details of repositories which contains YAML templates and core web app code which refer from this pipeline. Provide repository name, type and branch name of both repos under resources section.

      resources:
        repositories:
        - repository: Template
          type: git
          name: DemoWebbApp/Template
          ref: main

        - repository: DemoWebbApp
          name: DemoWebbApp/DemoWebbApp
          type: git
          ref: master

Checkout the WebbApp repo to download the core app code which we going to build using the
pipeline.

       - checkout: DemoWebbApp

Call temp.yml template file in Template repo using following script. Note we are referring to
template YAML with @ to indicate which repo it is coming from.

       - template: temp.yml@Template

Find the full pipeline script as follows.

trigger:

- none

 

pool:

  vmImage: 'windows-latest'

variables:

  - group: webapp

resources:

  repositories:

  - repository: Template

    type: git

    name: DemoWebbApp/Template

    ref: main

  - repository: DemoWebbApp

    type: git

    name: DemoWebbApp/DemoWebbApp

    ref: master

stages:

    - stage: ctemp

      jobs:

        - job: test_module_Build_Artifacts

          steps:

           - checkout: DemoWebbApp

           - template: temp.yml@Template

temp.yml template script as follows.

steps:

- task: UseDotNet@2

  displayName: 'Use .NET Core sdk 2.2.207'

  inputs:

    version: 2.2.207

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2

  displayName: 'dotnet restore'

  inputs:

    command: restore

    projects: 'DemoWebbApp.csproj'

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2

  displayName: 'dotnet build'

  inputs:

    projects: 'DemoWebbApp.csproj'

    arguments: '--configuration $(BuildConfiguration) --no-restore'

- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2

  displayName: 'dotnet publish'

  inputs:

    command: publish

    publishWebProjects: false

    projects: 'DemoWebbApp.csproj'

    arguments: '--configuration $(BuildConfiguration) --no-restore --no-build --output $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'

    zipAfterPublish: true

    modifyOutputPath: true

- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1

  inputs:

    PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'

    ArtifactName: 'drop'

    publishLocation: 'Container'

Once build is triggered and succeeded, you would be able to see execution page similar to following image.

This blog explained how to connect three repos in Azure DevOps team project to configure a build pipeline. Further, we learned how to configure YAML pipeline using templates in a remote git repo to build the code in another repo.