Release triggers
Azure Pipelines | Azure DevOps Server 2020 | Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018 - TFS 2015
Note
In Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2018 and previous versions, build and release pipelines are called definitions, runs are called builds, service connections are called service endpoints, stages are called environments, and jobs are called phases.
Note
This topic covers classic release pipelines. To understand triggers in YAML pipelines, see pipeline triggers.
Release triggers are an automation tool to deploy your application. When the trigger conditions are met, the pipeline will deploy your artifacts to the environment/stages you already specified.
Continuous deployment triggers
Continuous deployment triggers allow you to create a release every time a new build artifact is available. This feature is currently available only to build from Azure DevOps, TFS and Git-based repositories.
Build branch filters allow you to trigger a release only for a build that is from one of the branches selected here.
You also have the option to specify branch tags. If you do so, a release will be triggered only if a new build tagged with the keywords specified here, is available.
Note
Automatically creating a release does not mean it will be automatically deployed to a stage. You must set up stages triggers to deploy your app to the various stages.
Scheduled release triggers
Scheduled release trigger allow you to create new releases at specific times.
Select the schedule icon under the Artifacts section. Toggle the Enabled/Disabled button and specify your release schedule. You can set up multiple schedules to trigger a release.
Pull request triggers
If you chose to enable the pull-request triggers, a release will be created every time a selected artifact is available as part of a pull request workflow.
To use a pull request trigger, you must also enable it for specific stages. We will go through stage triggers in the next section. You may also want to set up a branch policies for your branches.
Stage triggers
Stage triggers allow you set up specific conditions to trigger deployment to a specific stage.
Select trigger: Set the trigger that will start the deployment to this stage automatically. Select "Release" to deploy to the stage every time a new release is created. Use the "Stage" option to deploy after deployments to selected stages are successful. To allow only manual deployments, select "Manual".
Artifacts filter: Select artifact condition(s) to trigger a new deployment. A release will be deployed to this stage only if all artifact conditions are met.
Schedule: Trigger a new deployment to this stage at a specific time.
Pull-request deployment: Enabling this will allow pull request based releases to be deployed to this stage. Keep it disabled if this is a critical or production stage.
Pre-deployment approvals: Select the users who can approve or reject deployments to this stage. By default, all users must approve the deployment. If a group is added, one user in the group must approve the deployment. You can also specify the timeout (the maximum time that an approval is allowed to be pending before it is automatically rejected) and approval policies.
Gates: Allow you to set up specific gates to evaluate before the deployment.
Deployment queue settings: Allow you to configure actions when multiple releases are queued for deployment.
Note
TFS 2015: The following features are not available in TFS 2015 - continuous deployment triggers for multiple artifact sources, multiple scheduled triggers combining scheduled and continuous deployment triggers in the same pipeline, continuous deployment based on the branch or tag of a build.
Help and support
- See our troubleshooting page
- Get advice on Stack Overflow, and feel free to post your questions, search for answers, or suggest a feature on our Azure DevOps Developer Community. Support page.