How to create a custom azure devops task from a .net core console app

Question

I would like to create an Azure Devops task based on a console app I have created. The task should run on a Linux build agent, but I have no idea about how to get started.

Has anyone else done some things similar already?

Answer 1

azure devops task is based on Node.js

from the following articles

• Add a build or release task
• Reference for integrating custom build tasks into extensions
• How To Build An Azure Custom Build/Release Task
• azure-pipelines-tasks samples

you can know much about create a task.

The SDK of azure devops task is Node. Maybe,You can combo the DotNetCoreInstaller and Github and other tasks. But, the enviroment is Node.js

The easyest way is use Node.js.

Answer 2

There is no direct task handler for .NET core. In order to make a cross platform task, you'll therefore need to create a small typescript project that uses the azure-pipelines-task-lib to call your executable.

I've got a very simple extension which packages an executable here, which can serve as an example of the extension structure:

https://github.com/jessehouwing/azure-pipelines-agent-screenshot

You'll need to change the following things:

• vss-extension.json
  • publisher
  • extension id
  • contribution id
• task.json
  • task id (give it a new guid)
  • task name
  • remove the current executionhandler and replace it with the Node one.

A very simple task that runs ping.exe based on Typescript can be found here:

https://github.com/jessehouwing/azure-pipelines-demo-ping-task/blob/master/PingTask/ping.ts

The simplest form would look like this:

import tl = require('azure-pipelines-task-lib/task');
import trm = require('azure-pipelines-task-lib/toolrunner');
import { chmodSync } from "fs";   

async function run() {
    try {
        let echoPath = tl.which('ping');

        if (!isWindows) {
            chmodSync(echoPath, "777");
        }

        let ping = tl.tool(echoPath);
        let result: number = await ping.exec();
    }
    catch (err) {
        tl.setResult(tl.TaskResult.Failed, err.message);
    }
}

void run();

All the basic steps to get your task bootstrapped are here:

• https://github.com/microsoft/azure-pipelines-task-lib/blob/master/node/README.md

Publishing a task to the marketplace is explained here:

• How to test new Azure DevOps extension version before publishing it for everyone