CI/CD Pipelines on Azure DevOps
Mastering CI/CD Pipelines on Azure DevOps: A Step-by-Step Guide
In today’s fast-paced software landscape, the ability to deliver high-quality code rapidly isn’t just an advantage—it’s a requirement. Azure DevOps has emerged as a powerhouse for modern engineering teams, offering a seamless, integrated platform for the entire Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
At the heart of this platform is Azure Pipelines, a service that allows you to automate your Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) workflows. This blog post breaks down everything you need to know to build and optimize your pipelines in 2025.
What is CI/CD on Azure DevOps?
Before diving into the “how,” let’s clarify the “what”:
-
Continuous Integration (CI): The practice of automating the merging and testing of code. Every time a developer pushes code to the repository (like Azure Repos or GitHub), a build is triggered to ensure the new changes don’t break the existing application.
-
Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CD): The process of taking that validated code and automatically deploying it to various environments (Dev, QA, Staging, and finally Production).
Key Components of a Pipeline
To master Azure Pipelines, you need to understand its building blocks:
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Triggers: Events that tell the pipeline to run (e.g., a code push or a pull request).
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Stages: Major divisions in the pipeline (e.g., “Build,” “Test,” and “Deploy”).
-
Jobs: A series of steps that run on a single agent. Multiple jobs can run in parallel.
-
Steps/Tasks: The smallest building blocks (e.g., running a PowerShell script or a
.NET Corebuild task). -
Artifacts: The output of your CI process (like a
.zipfile or a Docker image) that gets passed to the CD stage. -
Agents: The computing power (hosted by Microsoft or self-hosted) that actually executes the tasks.
YAML vs. Classic Editor: Which Should You Use?
Azure DevOps offers two ways to create pipelines. In 2025, the industry has a clear winner:
| Feature | YAML Pipelines (Recommended) | Classic Editor |
| Approach | Pipeline as Code (PaC) | Visual Drag-and-Drop |
| Version Control | Stored in your repo (vetted via PRs) | Stored in Azure DevOps database |
| Scalability | Easy to reuse via templates | Difficult to manage at scale |
| Future-Proof | Microsoft’s primary focus | Maintenance mode / Being deprecated |
Verdict: Always choose YAML. It allows you to version your infrastructure alongside your code, making it easier to track changes and roll back if necessary.
Step-by-Step: Setting Up Your First YAML Pipeline
1. Define the Trigger and Environment
Start by creating an azure-pipelines.yml file in your root directory. Define which branch should trigger the build and what operating system the agent should use.
trigger:
- main
pool:
vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
2. Add the Build (CI) Stage
Use tasks to restore dependencies and compile your code. For a .NET application, it might look like this:
stages:
- stage: Build
jobs:
- job: Compile
steps:
- task: DotNetCoreCLI@2
inputs:
command: 'build'
projects: '**/*.csproj'
3. Publish Artifacts
Once the build is successful, you must “publish” the files so the deployment stage can find them.
- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
inputs:
PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
ArtifactName: 'drop'
4. Deploy (CD) Stage
Finally, define a stage to push those artifacts to Azure App Service, AKS, or any other cloud provider.
Best Practices for 2025
-
Shift Left on Security: Integrate tools like Microsoft Defender for Cloud or Snyk directly into your pipeline to scan for vulnerabilities before the code even leaves the build stage.
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Use Variable Groups & Key Vault: Never hardcode secrets. Use the Azure DevOps Library or link an Azure Key Vault to manage sensitive strings securely.
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Implement Approval Gates: For production deployments, add manual approval checks. This ensures a human lead or QA engineer signs off before code goes live.
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Modularize with Templates: If you have 50 microservices, don’t write 50 pipelines. Create a master YAML template and call it from each service’s repository.
Conclusion
Setting up a CI/CD pipeline on Azure DevOps transforms your development process from a manual, error-prone chore into a high-speed, automated engine. By embracing YAML pipelines and following security best practices, you can focus on what matters most: writing great code.
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