There's really exciting stuff coming in the world of automated build/continuous integration for TFS users!
Chris Patterson at Microsoft posted a blog yesterday with some great information about what's coming for build in TFS2015 (and Visual Studio Online, of course!)
I've had a chance to get some heads-down time with the "alpha" version of "Build vNext", and I can say one thing: It is awesome. It's a massive leap over XAML-based build process templates in every way: Ease of use, ease of customization, maintenance. Everything. I haven't been this excited about a new feature in TFS in a long, long time.
Here are some highlights:
- No more build controllers. You connect the build agents directly to TFS. You can still manage which build agents are available to particular build definitions (and it's very, very flexible -- much moreso than tagged agents in XAML builds).
- Build agents are cross-platform! You can install a build agent on Windows, or on Linux, or on OSX.
- You build up your build process by choosing a series of actions... there are a ton "in the box", and you can build out your own. I was able to set up a build to pull Java code from Github, then invoke Maven on Linux, all with the provided tools. This will also let you run arbitrary scripts (Bash, Powershell, command line, etc) during your process, so you can extend it easily.
- Easy auditing! The build definitions are stored as JSON under-the-hood, so you can pull up the build definiton's history and see who changed the build, what they changed, and when they did it.
Note: The XAML-based build system isn't going away -- it will be continued to be supported! But once you sit down and play with this new build system, you'll want to migrate as fast as possible.
As featured on, Visual Studio - Developer Top Ten for February 18th, 2015.
