Azure DevOps YAML Pipelines: Nine Features You Should Know About

Features I wish I had known about earlier for developing, debugging, and improving the performance of my pipelines

Using the Azure CLI to queue builds

Since there is no support for running pipelines locally, you need to commit each change to your repository and queue your pipeline to run within Azure DevOps. To queue a run, you have three options: you can manually queue a run via the Azure DevOps GUI, you can set up triggers on your pipeline to queue a run whenever you commit, or you can use the Azure DevOps CLI to queue a run.

Of the three options, I have found the CLI the easiest to work with. The GUI takes a bit too long to click through, and the automatic triggers still mean you have to navigate through the GUI to check whether your pipeline worked and retrieve any validation feedback.

Using the CLI means you can get some validation feedback (more on that below), re-run builds as required, and easily change the variables sent to the pipeline. Adding the — -openflag to the command will open the build results page in your browser, allowing you to monitor the pipeline’s progress as it runs. Finally, combining the Azure DevOps CLI with committing and pushing to…