Integrate Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions with work item tracking tools

Introduction:

Work item tracking is a crucial aspect of software development, allowing teams to manage and track the progress of tasks, issues, and user stories throughout the development lifecycle. Microsoft provides several tools to facilitate work item tracking, including Azure Boards and GitHub Issues.

Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions are popular continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platforms that enable developers to automate their build, test, and deployment workflows. Integrating these platforms with work item tracking tools can bring significant benefits, including enhanced traceability, improved visibility, and streamlined collaboration. In this article, we will explore how to integrate Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions with work item tracking tools.

Azure Boards Integration:

Azure Boards is a work item tracking system that offers a wide range of features to plan, track, and discuss work across the development team. Azure Pipelines provides a built-in integration with Azure Boards, allowing you to link work items to your build and release pipelines.

To integrate Azure Pipelines with Azure Boards, follow these steps:

1. Open your Azure Pipelines project and navigate to the Pipeline you want to integrate with Azure Boards.
2. Click on the “Edit” button to modify the pipeline configuration.
3. Add the following code snippet to your pipeline configuration file (e.g., azure-pipelines.yml):

jobs:
- job: Build
pool:
vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
steps:
- task: Xbox.Pipeline.WorkItems.LinkPRsAndWorkItems.LinkPRsAndWorkItems@1
inputs:
sprintPath: '$(Build.Repository.LocalPath)/pathToSprintScript'
projectName: 'YourAzureBoardsProjectName'
sprintName: 'YourSprintName'

4. Replace ‘pathToSprintScript’ with the relative path to the script that retrieves work items from Azure Boards based on your sprint criteria.
5. Replace ‘YourAzureBoardsProjectName’ with the name of your Azure Boards project.
6. Replace ‘YourSprintName’ with the name of your sprint.
7. Save the pipeline configuration file.
8. Commit and push the changes to your Git repository.

This integration ensures that the related work items are linked to the build pipeline, providing complete traceability between development activities and the associated work items.

GitHub Issues Integration:

GitHub Issues is a built-in issue tracking system that allows you to create, assign, and track issues directly within your GitHub repository. GitHub Actions provides seamless integration with GitHub Issues, enabling you to automate various workflows based on issue events.

To integrate GitHub Actions with GitHub Issues, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the GitHub repository you want to integrate with GitHub Actions.
2. Click on the “Actions” tab to access the repository’s workflows.
3. Click on the “Set up a workflow yourself” button to create a new workflow file.
4. Add the following code snippet to your workflow file (e.g., .github/workflows/issues.yaml):

name: Issue Tracking

5. Save the workflow file.

This workflow will be triggered whenever a new issue is opened or an existing one is edited. It logs the issue details to the workflow run console. You can customize the workflow based on your requirements, such as adding additional steps to notify team members, update work item tracking tools, or perform other automated actions.

Conclusion:

Integrating Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions with work item tracking tools such as Azure Boards and GitHub Issues brings significant benefits to software development teams. The integration enhances traceability, provides improved visibility across the development lifecycle, and streamlines collaboration. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily integrate these tools and leverage their combined power to streamline your CI/CD workflows and work item tracking processes.