Azure DevOps Roadmap


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Product roadmap

This feature list is a peek into our roadmap. It identifies some of the significant features we are currently working on and a rough timeframe for when you can expect to see them. It is not comprehensive but is intended to provide some visibility into key investments. At the top you will find a list of our large multi-quarter initiatives and the features that they break down into. Further down you will find the full list of significant features we have planned.

Each feature is linked to an article where you can learn more about a particular item. These features and dates are the current plans and are subject to change. The Timeframe columns reflect when we expect the feature to be available on Azure DevOps Services; the Server columns reflect when we expect the feature to ship in Azure DevOps Server.

Initiatives

GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps

GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) for Azure DevOps is now generally available. Any project collection administrator can now enable Advanced Security for their organization, projects and repos from the Project Settings or Organization Settings. You can learn more about how to configure GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps in our documentation.

New capabilities we expect to deliver in the upcoming semester include:

  • Similar to GHAS-for-GitHub, any third-party open source or commercial security analysis pipeline task that generates results in conforming SARIF format can display those results in the Advanced Security Code Scanning alerts hub. This gives you a single pane of glass natively built into Azure DevOps to view your repository code security alerts from all your analysis tools.

  • Support for custom CodeQL queries.

  • Detection and blocking of more kinds of secrets.

Minimizing the risks associated with credential theft

Azure DevOps supports many different authentication mechanisms, including basic authentication, personal access tokens (PATs), SSH, and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) access tokens. These mechanisms are not created equally from a security perspective, especially when it comes to the potential for credential theft. For example, unintended leakage of credentials like PATs can let malicious actors into Azure DevOps organizations where they can gain access to critical assets like source code, pivot toward supply chain attacks, or even pivot toward compromising production infrastructure. To minimize the risks of credential theft, we will focus our efforts in the upcoming quarters in the following areas:

  • Enable administrators to improve authentication security through control plane policies.

  • Reducing the need for PATs and other stealable secrets by adding support for more secure alternatives.

  • Deepening Azure DevOps' integration with Microsoft Entra ID to better support its various security features.

  • Avoiding the need to store production secrets in Azure Pipelines service connections.

Feature Area Service Server
PAT lifecycle APIs General Done2022 Q4 N/A
Control plane for personal access tokens (PAT) General Done2022 Q4 2022.1
Managed Identity and Service Principal support (preview) General Done2023 Q1 N/A
Workload identity federation for Azure Deployments (preview) Pipelines Done2023 Q3 N/A
Granular scopes for Azure Active Directory OAuth General Done2023 Q3 N/A
Managed Identity and Service Principal support (GA) General Done2023 Q3 N/A
Workload identity federation for Azure service connection (GA) Pipelines 2024 Q1 N/A
Workload identity federation for Docker service connection Pipelines 2024 H1 N/A
Full web support for Conditional Access Policies General 2024 Q1 N/A
Policies to disable authentication methods General Future N/A

Updated Boards experience

The Azure Boards user experience has been updated from the ground up. While the functionality remains the same, you can expect a more modern design, responsive reflows, improved performance, and improved accessibility. This quarter we are rolling out the New Boards Hub as the default experience to all organizations.

Note that most new features we are shipping in Boards are only available in the New Boards Hub. These investments include:

Feature Area Service Server
Move to position Boards Done2022 Q2 Future
Adding Assigned To avatar to child items on cards Boards Done2022 Q2 Future
Move to Column and Move to Swimlane Boards Done2022 Q1 Future
Filter to work item history Boards Done2022 Q3 Future
Copy work item attachment URL Boards Done2022 Q4 Future
Maintain backlog hierarchy when filters are applied Boards Done2022 Q4 Future
Ability to change link type from Web UI Boards Done2022 Q4 Future
Swimlane colors on Kanban board Boards Done2023 Q1 Future
Swimlane rules on Kanban board Boards Done2023 Q2 Future
Markdown editor for work item comments (preview) Boards Done2023 Q2 Future
Automated team work item rules Boards Done2024 Q1 Future
New Boards Hub on by default for all organizations Boards 2024 Q2 Future

Improved Boards + GitHub Integration

The existing Azure Boards + GitHub integration has been in place for several years now. The integration is a great starting point, but it does not offer the level of traceability that our customers have grown accustomed to. Based on customer feedback, we have put together set of investments to enhance this integration. Our goal is to improve upon it so that Azure Boards customers who choose to use GitHub repositories can maintain an equivalent level of traceability to having repositories in Azure DevOps.

These investments include:

Feature Area Service Server
Improved AB#{ID} validation Boards Done2023 Q4 Future
Add link to GitHub commit or pull request from work item (preview) Boards Done2024 Q1 Future
Show more details about a GitHub pull request (preview) Boards Done2024 Q1 Future
Create branch on GitHub repository from work item Boards 2024 Q2 Future
Improve scalability when searching and linking GitHub
repos to an Azure DevOps project
Boards 2024 Q2 Future

Pipelines agent Node lifecycle

Azure Pipelines tasks can be authored either in Node or PowerShell, and they use the corresponding runner in the Azure Pipelines agent. Node has a regular cadence of releases, with Node 16 being the LTS and Node 18 the Current version as of October 2022. The original design of the Node task runner did not make Node version upgrades straightforward for task authors, and as a result has not kept up with the latest Node releases. We've heard feedback from customers on this, and are now making a number of changes to enable Azure Pipelines agents to keep installed Node versions in sync with the Node release cadence and support lifecycle while minimizing impacts on task and pipeline authors.

As a first step, we recently released a new Node 16 task runner for the agent. Over the next few months, we plan to provide improved guidance for task authors to keep up with Node updates. Because not all tasks in the Marketplace will be continuously updated to run on the latest versions of Node, we will also provide pipeline authors the ability to continue using non-upgraded tasks. Once all these features are available, we'll remove end-of-life versions of Node from Microsoft hosted agents and self-hosted agent images.

Feature Area Service Server
Node 16 task runner in pipeline agent Pipelines Done2022 Q3 2022.1
Tasks can express compatibility with multiple Node runners Pipelines Done2022 Q3 2022.1
All in-the-box tasks run on Node 16 Pipelines Done2023 Q4 Future
Ability to run tasks on next available Node version, if targeted version is not available Pipelines Done2023 Q4 2022.1
Removal of Node 6 and 10 from Microsoft hosted pools Pipelines Future Future
Ability to download and install old runners on self-hosted agents Pipelines Done2023 Q4 2022.1
Stop shipping Node 6 and Node 10 runners with the agent Pipelines Future Future
Ship a Node 16+ only agent in addition to the one that has all versions Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future

YAML and release pipelines feature parity

Customers prefer YAML pipelines over classic for builds (CI). However, for releases (CD), many customers have continued to use classic release management pipelines over YAML. The primary reason for this is the lack of parity in various CD features between the two solutions. Over the next year, we'll invest in bridging these gaps.

As a first step, we'll focus on checks. Checks are the primary mechanism in YAML pipelines to gate promotion of a build from one stage to another.

Feature Area Service Server
Auditing for checks Pipelines Done2022 Q4 Future
Custom variables in checks Pipelines Done2023 Q1 Future
Checks scalability Pipelines Done2023 Q2 Future
Bypass approvals and checks Pipelines Done2023 Q4 Future
Sequencing approvals and other checks Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future
Deferred approvals Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future
Service connections in checks Pipelines Future Future
Checks extensibility Pipelines Future Future

Next, we'll focus on deployment functionality, to make it possible to have deployment strategies in YAML pipelines similar to the ones in classic release pipelines.

Feature Area Service Server
Manual queuing of stages Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future
Rerun single stage Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future
Stage-level concurrency Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future
Stage-level traceability Pipelines 2024 Q1 Future

Streamlined Dashboard Experience

Azure DevOps is enhancing the dashboard experience, focusing on simplifying the user flow for both creation and maintenance. We're fine-tuning our approach to improve workflow. Our aim is to streamline the onboarding process, ensuring that users can set up their dashboards quickly and start working without hassle. To boost productivity and enhance decision-making through dashboard insights, we plan to deliver the following features.

Feature Area Service Server
Work Item Chart Filtering Reporting Done2023 Q4 Future
New Dashboard directory experience Reporting Done2023 Q4 Future
Dashboard Global Parameter Reporting 2024 H1 Future
Dashboard Template Reporting 2024 H1 Future

All features

Timeframe Feature Area Server
2024 Q1 Security Overview General N/A
Full web support for Conditional Access Policies General N/A
Third-party SARIF support General N/A
Improved secret detection General N/A
Custom CodeQL queries General N/A
Automated team work item rules Boards Future
Improved GitHub app and AB#{ID} validation Boards Future
Add link to GitHub commit or pull request from work item (preview) Boards Future
Show more details about a GitHub pull request (preview) Boards Future
Markdown editor for work item comments (preview) Boards Future
All in-the-box tasks run on Node 16 Pipelines Future
Ability to download and install old runners on self-hosted agents Pipelines Future
Ability to run tasks on next available Node version, if targeted version is not available Pipelines Future
Removal of Node 6 and 10 from Microsoft hosted pools Pipelines Future
Sequencing approvals and other checks Pipelines Future
In-product recommendations for secure settings Pipelines Future
Manual queuing of stages Pipelines Future
Rerun single stage Pipelines Future
Stage-level concurrency Pipelines Future
Stage-level traceability Pipelines Future
2024 Q2 Reduce time to filter test plans and test suites in copy and import operations Test Plans Future
Code coverage policy at a folder level Test Plans Future
New Boards Hub on by default Boards Future
Create branch on GitHub repository from work item Boards Future
Improve scalability when searching and linking GitHub
repos to an Azure DevOps project
Boards Future
Future Auditing GA General N/A
Policies to disable authentication methods General N/A
Access events for PAT, SSH will be available in the Auditing Log General Future
Substring search General Future
Commits search General Future
Additional fields on page filters Boards Future
Delivery plans improvements to filtering by parent Boards Future
Markdown editor for work item multi-line fields Boards Future
Track repo cloning Repos Future
Stop shipping Node 6 and Node 10 runners with the agent Pipelines Future
Ship a Node 16 only agent in addition to the one that has all three versions (6, 10, 16) Pipelines Future
Support Pipelines App with GitHub Enterprise Pipelines Future
Service connections in checks Pipelines Future
Checks extensibility Pipelines Future
Package promote task in Azure Pipelines Artifacts Future
Deprecate old Azure Artifacts tasks in Azure Pipelines and default to new, auth-only tasks Artifacts Future
Dashboard Global Parameter Reporting Future
Dashboard Template Reporting Future
Sort test plans by any column Test Plans Future
Test Plan task in Pipelines Test Plans Future
JUnit / Java support in Test Plans Test Plans Future
Improved co-relation between test run and test case versions Test Plans Future
Restore deleted test plans and test suites using REST API Test Plans Future
Improve traceability of in-progress test executions Test Plans Future
Sort test suites in alphabetical order Test Plans Future

How to provide feedback

We would love to hear what you think about these features. Report any problems or suggest a feature through Developer Community.

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