Configuring CI Using Azure Pipelines and Nx
Below is an example of an Azure Pipelines setup for an Nx workspace - building and testing only what is affected.
Check your Shallow Fetch settingsNx needs additional Git history available for affected to function correctly. Make sure Shallow fetching is disabled in your pipeline settings UI. For more info, check out this article from Microsoft here.
Unlike GitHub Actions and CircleCI, you don't have the metadata to help you track the last successful run on main. In the example below, the base is set to HEAD~1 (for push) or branching point (for pull requests), but a more robust solution would be to tag an SHA in the main job once it succeeds and then use this tag as a base. You can also try using the devops CLI within the pipeline yaml. See the nx-tag-successful-ci-run and nx-set-shas (version 1 implements tagging mechanism) repositories for more information.
We also have to set NX_BRANCH explicitly. NX_BRANCH does not impact the functionality of your runs, but does provide a human-readable label to easily identify them in the Nx Cloud app.
1trigger:
2 - main
3pr:
4 - main
5
6variables:
7 CI: 'true'
8 ${{ if eq(variables['Build.Reason'], 'PullRequest') }}:
9 NX_BRANCH: $(System.PullRequest.PullRequestId) # You can use $(System.PullRequest.PullRequestNumber if your pipeline is triggered by a PR from GitHub ONLY)
10 TARGET_BRANCH: $[replace(variables['System.PullRequest.TargetBranch'],'refs/heads/','origin/')]
11 ${{ if ne(variables['Build.Reason'], 'PullRequest') }}:
12 NX_BRANCH: $(Build.SourceBranchName)
13 HEAD_SHA: $(git rev-parse HEAD)
14
15jobs:
16 - job: main
17 pool:
18 vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
19 steps:
20 # Set Azure Devops CLI default settings
21 - bash: az devops configure --defaults organization=$(System.TeamFoundationCollectionUri) project=$(System.TeamProject)
22 displayName: 'Set default Azure DevOps organization and project'
23
24 # Get last successfull commit from Azure Devops CLI
25 - bash: |
26 LAST_SHA=$(az pipelines build list --branch $(Build.SourceBranchName) --definition-ids $(System.DefinitionId) --result succeeded --top 1 --query "[0].triggerInfo.\"ci.sourceSha\"")
27 if [ -z "$LAST_SHA" ]
28 then
29 LAST_SHA=$DEFAULT_BASE_SHA
30 fi
31 echo "Last successful commit SHA: $LAST_SHA"
32 echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=BASE_SHA]$LAST_SHA"
33 displayName: 'Get last successful commit SHA'
34 env:
35 AZURE_DEVOPS_EXT_PAT: $(System.AccessToken)
36
37 # Required for nx affected if we're on a branch
38 - script: git branch --track main origin/main
39 - script: npm ci
40 - script: npx nx format:check --base=$(BASE_SHA)
41 - script: npx nx affected --base=$(BASE_SHA) -t lint,test,build --parallel=3 --configuration=ci
42The main job implements the CI workflow.
Get the Commit of the Last Successful Build
In the example above we ran a script to retrieve the commit of the last successful build. The idea is to use Azure Devops CLI directly in the Pipeline Yaml
First, we configure Devops CLI
1# Set Azure Devops default settings
2- bash: az devops configure --defaults organization=$(System.TeamFoundationCollectionUri) project=$(System.TeamProject)
3 displayName: 'Configure Azure DevOps organization and project'
4Then we can query the pipelines API (providing the auth token)
1# Get last successfully commit infos from Azure Devops
2- bash: |
3 LAST_SHA=$(az pipelines build list --branch $(Build.SourceBranchName) --definition-ids $(System.DefinitionId) --result succeeded --top 1 --query "[0].triggerInfo.\"ci.sourceSha\"")
4 echo "Last successful commit SHA: $LAST_SHA"
5 echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=BASE_SHA]$LAST_SHA"
6 displayName: 'Get last successful commit SHA'
7 env:
8 AZURE_DEVOPS_EXT_PAT: $(System.AccessToken)
9We can target a specific build, in this example we specified:
- The branch (--branch)
- The pipeline Id (--definition-ids)
- The result type (--result)
- The number of result (-top)
By default the command returns an entire JSON object with all the information. But we can narrow it down to the desired result with the --query param that uses JMESPath format (more details)
Finally we extract the result in a common custom variable named BASE_SHA used later by nx affected commands
Distributed Task Execution with Nx Cloud
Read more about Distributed Task Execution (DTE).
1trigger:
2 - main
3pr:
4 - main
5
6variables:
7 CI: 'true'
8 ${{ if eq(variables['Build.Reason'], 'PullRequest') }}:
9 NX_BRANCH: $(System.PullRequest.PullRequestNumber)
10 TARGET_BRANCH: $[replace(variables['System.PullRequest.TargetBranch'],'refs/heads/','origin/')]
11 BASE_SHA: $(git merge-base $(TARGET_BRANCH) HEAD)
12 ${{ if ne(variables['Build.Reason'], 'PullRequest') }}:
13 NX_BRANCH: $(Build.SourceBranchName)
14 BASE_SHA: $(git rev-parse HEAD~1)
15 HEAD_SHA: $(git rev-parse HEAD)
16
17jobs:
18 - job: agents
19 strategy:
20 parallel: 3
21 displayName: Nx Cloud Agent
22 pool:
23 vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
24 steps:
25 - script: npm ci
26 - script: npx nx-cloud start-agent
27
28 - job: main
29 displayName: Nx Cloud Main
30 pool:
31 vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
32 steps:
33 - script: git branch --track main origin/main
34 - script: npm ci
35 - script: npx nx-cloud start-ci-run --stop-agents-after="build"
36 - script: npx nx-cloud record -- npx nx format:check --base=$(BASE_SHA) --head=$(HEAD_SHA)
37 - script: npx nx affected --base=$(BASE_SHA) --head=$(HEAD_SHA) -t lint,test,build --parallel=3 --configuration=ci
38You can also use our ci-workflow generator to generate the pipeline file.