Azure DevOps Pipelines 101

BeginnerAzure DevOps2026-03-14

What Are Azure Pipelines?

Azure Pipelines is a CI/CD service in Azure DevOps that automatically builds, tests, and deploys your code. Pipelines are defined in YAML files and stored alongside your source code.

Pipeline Structure

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
      - main
  paths:
    exclude:
      - docs/*

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

stages:
  - stage: Build
    jobs:
      - job: BuildJob
        steps:
          - checkout: self
          - task: UseDotNet@2
            inputs:
              packageType: 'sdk'
              version: '8.x'
          - script: dotnet build --configuration Release
            displayName: 'Build solution'

  - stage: Test
    dependsOn: Build
    jobs:
      - job: TestJob
        steps:
          - script: dotnet test --configuration Release
            displayName: 'Run tests'

Key Concepts

Triggers

Control when your pipeline runs:

CI Trigger — On push to specified branches
PR Trigger — On pull request creation/update
Scheduled — Cron-based schedules
Manual — Triggered via the portal or API

Variables

variables:
  buildConfiguration: 'Release'
  # Variable group (linked from Library)
  - group: 'production-secrets'
  # Inline
  - name: deployRegion
    value: 'uksouth'

Conditions

- stage: DeployProd
  condition: and(succeeded(), eq(variables['Build.SourceBranch'], 'refs/heads/main'))

Agent Pools

Pool Type	Description
Microsoft-hosted	Pre-configured VMs (ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest)
Self-hosted	Your own machines with custom tools and network access

Artifacts

Share build outputs between stages:

- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  inputs:
    pathToPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
    artifactName: 'drop'

Next Steps

Learn about multi-stage deployment patterns
Set up infrastructure deployment with Terraform
Deploy Logic Apps via Azure DevOps
Deploy API Management via Azure DevOps