Default permissions quick reference

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

To use Azure DevOps features, users must be added to a security group with the appropriate permissions and granted access to the web portal. Limitations to select features are based on the access level and security group to which a user is assigned. The Basic access level and higher supports full access to most Azure DevOps services, except for Azure Test Plans. Stakeholder access level provides partial support to Azure Boards and Azure Pipelines. To learn more about access levels, see About access levels and Stakeholder access quick reference.

Assign users to a security group

The most common built-in security groups—Readers, Contributors, and Project Administrators—and team administrator role grant permissions to specific features.

In general, use the following guidance when assigning users to a security group:

• Add to the Contributors security group full-time workers who contribute to the code base or manage projects.
• Add to the Project Administrators security group users tasked with managing project resources.
• Add to the Project Collection Administrators security group users tasked with managing organization or collection resources.

To learn more about administrative tasks see About user, team, project, and organization-level settings. For a complete reference of all built-in groups and permissions, see Permissions and groups. For information about access levels, see About access levels.

In the tables provided in this article, a ✔️ (checkmark) indicates that the corresponding access level or security group has access to a feature by default.

To assign or change an access level, see Add users and assign licenses. If you need to grant specific users select permissions, you can do so.

Azure Boards

You can plan and track work from the web portal Boards hub, and using Visual Studio, Excel, and other clients. For an overview of work tracking features, see About Agile tools. To change permissions, see Set permissions and access for work tracking. In addition to the permissions set at the project level via the built-in groups, you can set permissions for the following objects: area and iteration paths and individual queries and query folders.

Note

Team administrators can configure settings for their team's tools. Organization owners and members of the Project Administrators group can configure settings for all teams. To be added as an administrator, see Add team administrators or Change project-level permissions.

Each user's access level or permission assignment controls access to the following tasks. Members of the Readers, Contributors, or Project Administrators group are assumed to have Basic access or greater.

General work item permissions

You can use work items to track anything you need to track. To learn more, see Understand how work items are used to track issues, tasks, and epics.

Task or permission

Readers

Contributors

Project admins

---

View work items in this node (Area Path permission)

✔️

✔️

✔️

Edit work items in this node (Area Path permission)

✔️

✔️

Edit work item comments in this node (Area Path permission)

✔️

✔️

Create tag definition

✔️

✔️

Change work item type (Project-level permission)

✔️

✔️

Move work items out of this project (Project-level permission)

✔️

✔️

Email work items

✔️

✔️

✔️

Apply a work item template

✔️

✔️

Delete and restore work items (Project-level permission) (able to restore from the Recycle bin)

✔️

✔️

Permanently delete work items (Project-level permission)

✔️

Provide feedback (through the Microsoft Feedback client)

✔️

✔️

Request feedback

✔️

✔️

Note

Work items are subject to rules applied to them. Conditional rules based on user or group membership are cached for your web browser. If you find yourself restricted to update a work item, you may have encountered one of these rules. If you believe you've encountered an issue that doesn't apply to you, see Work item form IndexDB caching issues. For more information, see Rules and rule evaluation.

Boards

You use Boards to implement Kanban methods. Boards present work items as cards and support quick status updates through drag-and-drop.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Team admins
Project admins

View boards and open work items

✔️

✔️

✔️

Add work items to a board; update status through drag-and-drop

✔️

✔️

Reorder work items or reparent child items through drag-and-drop; update a field on a card

✔️

✔️

Add child items to a checklist

✔️

✔️

Assign to a sprint (from card field)

✔️

✔️

Configure board settings

✔️

Backlogs features access

Backlogs display work items as lists. A product backlog represents your project plan and a repository of all the information you need to track and share with your team. Portfolio backlogs allow you to group and organize your backlog into a hierarchy.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Team admins
Project admins

View backlogs and open work items

✔️

✔️

✔️

Add work items to a backlog

✔️

✔️

Use bulk edit features

✔️

✔️

Add child items to a backlog item; prioritize or reorder a backlog; parent items using the Mapping pane; Assign items to a sprint using the Planning pane

✔️

✔️

Configure team settings, backlog levels, show bugs, work days off

✔️

Sprints

You use sprint tools to implement Scrum methods. The Sprints set of tools provide filtered views of work items that a team has assigned to specific iteration paths or sprints.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Team admins Project admins

View sprint backlogs, taskboards, and open work items

✔️

✔️

✔️

Add work items to a sprint backlog or taskboard

✔️

✔️

Prioritize/reorder a sprint backlog or taskboard; add child items to a backlog item; reassign items to a sprint using the Planning pane

✔️

✔️

View team capacity and work details

✔️

✔️

Set team capacity

✔️

Use bulk edit features

✔️

✔️

Define team sprints

✔️

Queries

Queries are filtered lists of work items based on criteria that you define by using a query editor. Adhoc searches are powered by a semantic search engine.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Project admins

---

View and run managed queries, view query charts

✔️

✔️

✔️

Create and save managed My queries, query charts

✔️

✔️

Create, delete, and save Shared queries, charts, folders

✔️

Delivery plans

Delivery plans display work items as cards against a calendar view. This format can be an effective communication tool with managers, partners, and stakeholders for a team.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Team admins
Project admins

View delivery plans

✔️

✔️

✔️

Create, edit, or delete a delivery plan, Contributors can only edit or delete plans that they create

✔️

✔️

Manage permissions for a delivery plan, Contributors can only manage permissions for plans that they create

✔️

✔️

Azure Repos

You can manage your source code from the web portal Repos hub, or using Xcode, Eclipse, IntelliJ, Android Studio, Visual Studio, or Visual Studio Code.

Stakeholders for private projects have no access to Repos. Stakeholders for public projects have the same access to Repos as Contributors.

Advanced Security

You can use Advanced Security to identify security vulnerabilities in your repository.

Permission

Readers

Contributors

Build Admins

Project Admins

---

View alerts (ability to view all security alerts under the Advanced Security tab)

✔️

✔️

✔️

Manage and dismiss alerts (ability to dismiss any Advanced Security alert)

✔️

Manage settings (toggle on Advanced Security and/or enable push protection for a repository)

---

Code: Source control

You can connect to your code from the web portal Code hub, or using Xcode, Eclipse, IntelliJ, Android Studio, Visual Studio, or Visual Studio Code. Stakeholders for private projects have no access to Code.

Git

You can use Git repositories to host and collaborate on your source code. For an overview of code features and functions.

Permission

Readers

Contributors

Build Admins

Project Admins

---

Read (clone, fetch, and explore the contents of a repository); also, can create, comment on, vote, and Contribute to pull requests

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

Contribute, Create branches, Create tags, and Manage notes

✔️

✔️

✔️

Create repository, Delete repository, and Rename repository

✔️

Edit policies, Manage permissions, Remove others' locks

✔️

Bypass policies when completing pull requests, Bypass policies when pushing, Force push (rewrite history, delete branches and tags)
(not set for any security group)

---

TFVC

Team Foundation Version Control (TFVC) provides a centralized version control system to manage your source control.

Note

Tasks such as create, delete, or rename a TFVC repository are not supported. Once a TFVC repository is created you can't delete it. Also, you can only have one TFVC repository per project. This is different from Git repositories which allow for adding, renaming, and deleting multiple repositories.

Permission

Readers

Contributors

Build Admins

Project Admins

Check in, Label, Lock, Merge, Pend a change in a server workspace, Read

Read only

✔️

✔️

✔️

Administer labels, Manage branches, Manage permissions, Revise other users' changes, Undo other users' changes, Unlock other users' changes

✔️

Azure Pipelines

You can define and manage your builds and releases from the web portal Pipelines hub. For an overview of pipelines features and functions, see Continuous integration on any platform.

Task	Readers	Contributors	Build Admins	Project Admins	Release Admins
View release pipelines	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Define builds with continuous integration		✔️	✔️	✔️
Define releases and manage deployments		✔️		✔️	✔️
Approve releases		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Azure Artifacts (5 users free)		✔️		✔️	✔️
Queue builds, edit build quality		✔️	✔️	✔️
Manage build queues and build qualities			✔️	✔️
Manage build retention policies, delete and destroy builds		✔️	✔️	✔️
Administer build permissions			✔️	✔️
Manage release permissions				✔️	✔️
Create and edit task groups		✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Manage task group permissions			✔️	✔️	✔️
Can view library items such as variable groups	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Use and manage library items such as variable groups			✔️	✔️	✔️

Azure Test Plans

Users granted Basic + Test Plans or Visual Studio Enterprise access level can define and manage manual tests from the web portal. For an overview of manual test features and functions, see Testing overview. You set several test permissions at the project level from Project Settings>Permissions.

Permission

Level

Readers

Contributors

Project Admins

View test runs

Project-level

✔️

✔️

✔️

Create test runs
Delete test runs

Project-level

✔️

✔️

Manage test configurations
Manage test environments

Project-level

✔️

✔️

Create tag definition
Delete and restore work items

Project-level

✔️

✔️

Permanently delete work items

Project-level

✔️

View work items in this node

Area Path

✔️

✔️

✔️

Edit work items in this node
Manage test plans
Manage test suites

Area Path

✔️

✔️

Note

The Change work item type permission doesn't apply to test-specific work items. Even if you choose this feature from the work item form, changing the work item type is disallowed.

Azure Artifacts

You can manage feeds from the web portal, Artifacts. Users with Stakeholder or Basic access, or higher can access Azure Artifacts features. To set permissions, see Secure feeds using permissions.

Feeds have four permission roles: Feed Reader, Feed and Upstream Reader (Collaborator), Feed Publisher (Contributor), and Feed Owner. Feed Owners can add user accounts or security groups to any role.

Permission	Feed Reader	Feed and Upstream Reader (Collaborator)	Feed Publisher (Contributor)	Feed Owner
List packages in the feed	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Download/install/restore packages	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Save packages from upstream sources		✔️	✔️	✔️
Publish packages			✔️	✔️
Promote packages to a view			✔️	✔️
Deprecate/unlist/yank packages			✔️	✔️
Delete/unpublish packages				✔️
Add/remove upstream sources				✔️
Allow external package versions				✔️
Edit feed settings and permissions				✔️

By default, the Project Collection Build Service is a Contributor and your project team is a Reader.

Note

In Azure Artifacts, feeds may be scoped to a single project or to the entire organization. To access a project-scoped feed, a user must also have access to the project containing that feed.

Notifications, alerts, and team collaboration tools

To manage notifications, see Manage personal notifications and Manage team notifications.

Note

There are no UI permissions associated with managing notifications. Instead, you can manage them using the TFSSecurity command line tool.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Team admins

Project admins Project Collection admins

---

View the project page, navigate using the project page

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

Edit the project page

✔️

Set personal notifications or alerts

✔️

✔️

✔️

Set team notifications or alerts

✔️

✔️

Set project-level notifications or alerts

✔️

View Project READMEs

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

View Project wikis or code wikis

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

Provision or create a project wiki

✔️

✔️

✔️

Publish code as a wiki

✔️

✔️

✔️

Request feedback

✔️

✔️

✔️

Provide feedback

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

Search across projects, organizations, collections

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

Dashboards, charts, reports, and widgets

You can define and manage team and project dashboards from the web portal, Dashboards. For an overview of dashboard and chart features, see Dashboards. You can set individual dashboard permissions to grant or restrict the ability to edit or delete dashboards.

Users granted Stakeholder access to private projects can't view or create query charts. Stakeholder access to public projects can view and create query charts.

---

Task

Readers

Contributors

Team admins

Project admins

---

View team and project dashboards

✔️

✔️

✔️

✔️

---

---

Add and configure project dashboards

✔️

✔️

---

Power BI Integration and Analytics views

From the web portal Analytics views, you can create and manage Analytics views. An Analytics view provides a simplified way to specify the filter criteria for a Power BI report based on the Analytics Service data store. The Analytics Service is the reporting platform for Azure DevOps. To learn more, see What is the Analytics Service?.

You set permissions for the service at the project level, and for shared Analytics views at the object level. Users with Stakeholder access have no access to view or edit Analytics views.

Task

Readers

Contributors

Project admins

View Analytics

✔️

✔️

✔️

View a shared Analytics view

✔️

✔️

Add a private or shared Analytics view

✔️

✔️

Edit and delete shared Analytics views

✔️

Related articles

• Add users to a project or team
• Security and permission management tools
• Permissions and groups reference
• About access levels
• Web portal navigation
• Troubleshoot permissions