<p>Azure DevOps allows easier and faster creation of build and release pipelines. It allows you to build, test, and deploy with continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) that is compatible with any language, platform, and cloud. It connects with GitHub (or any Git provider) and performs continuous deployments. It also provides cloud-hosted pipelines for Linux, macOS, and Windows, and builds for desktop, web, and mobile applications.</p> <h4 style="text-align: left;">Benefits of using Azure Pipelines with Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC):</h4> <ul> <li>Build, test, and deploy Java, PHP, Ruby, C/C++, .NET, Node.js, Python, Android, and iOS apps.</li> <li>Easily build and deploy the images to containers like Docker Hub and Azure Container Registry. Deploy containers to individual hosts or Kubernetes.</li> <li>Implement community-built build, test, and deployment tasks, along with hundreds of extensions from Slack and SonarCloud.</li> <li>Ensure rapid CI/CD pipelines for every open-source project.</li> <li>Take advantage of chaining builds and multi-phased builds – support for YAML, test integration, release gates, reporting, and more.</li> <li>Implement continuous delivery of your solution to any cloud, such as Azure, AWS, or GCP.</li> </ul> <h4 style="text-align: left;">Creating Azure Pipelines</h4> <p>The following section explains how to code a build pipeline and create a release pipeline. To build code from a repository (in this case Azure Repos), you must create a YAML file named: <i>azure-pipelines.yml.</i> This YAML file must include steps and tasks to create necessary configuration files and scripts. These tasks and scripts can also be added at different stages.</p> <p>Let’s consider having a Node.js-based project that uses gulp.js for linting and building. Since this is a Salesforce-based project, the user can utilize a build pipeline to deploy (i.e., upload code to the Salesforce instance) as well as use the following YAML:</p> <div class="col-md-10"> <code> <pre style="padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; border:1px solid #B5B5B5; background-color: #F4F4F4;"> trigger: batch: true branches: include: - master - develop pool: vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest' steps: - task: NodeTool@0 inputs: versionSpec: '12.16.3' displayName: 'Install Node.js'- script: | npm install npm install sgmf-scripts displayName: 'Install node modules'- task: Bash@3 inputs: targetType: 'inline' script: | echo "Creating dw.json" echo '{ "hostname": "$(hostname)", "username": "$(username)", "password": "$(password)", "code-version": "$(code-version)" }' > dw.json echo "Created dw.json" failOnStderr: true displayName: 'Create SFCC Config JSON'- script: | gulp lint gulp build displayName: 'Lint and Build using Gulp'- script: | npm run uploadCartridge "app*, int*, bc*" displayName: 'Upload cartridges' </pre> </code> </div><br> <p>Find the details of each section of this YAML file below:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Trigger:</strong> Provides control that allows build to trigger for listed branches, like develop, master, release, etc.</li> <li><strong>Pool:</strong> Azure Pipelines provide a Microsoft-hosted agent pool, named Azure Pipelines. You can choose from several virtual machine images where each image includes a broad range of tools and software.</li> </ul> <h5 style="text-align: left;">Steps to Code a Build Pipeline</h5> <p>Find the detailed steps below:</p> <p><strong>Step 1:</strong> Install Node.js (latest LTS as of today)</p> <div class="col-md-10"> <code> <pre style="padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; border:1px solid #B5B5B5; background-color: #F4F4F4;"> task: NodeTool@0 inputs: versionSpec: '12.16.3' displayName: 'Install Node.js' </pre> </code> </div><br> <p><strong>Step 2:</strong> Install script (sgmf-scripts) to install dependencies mentioned in package.json present in the repository at the same level as the YAML file.</p> <div class="col-md-10"> <code> <pre style="padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; border:1px solid #B5B5B5; background-color: #F4F4F4;"> script: | npm install npm install sgmf-scripts displayName: 'Install node modules' </pre> </code> </div><br> <p>This task is important as it creates a configuration file used by the sgmf-scripts package. Here, dw.json config file is created dynamically using variables — an out-of-the-box feature from Azure DevOps.</p> <p>Example:</p> <div class="col-md-10"> <code> <pre style="padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; border:1px solid #B5B5B5; background-color: #F4F4F4;"> $(hostname), $(username),… task: Bash@3 inputs: targetType: 'inline' script: | echo "Creating dw.json" echo '{ "hostname": "$(hostname)", "username": "$(username)", "password": "$(password)", "code-version": "$(code-version)" }' > dw.json echo "Created dw.json" failOnStderr: true displayName: 'Create SFCC Config JSON' </pre> </code> </div><br> <p><strong>Step 3:</strong> The next script to be installed is commonly used for linting and building frontend changes of the project.</p> <div class="col-md-10"> <code> <pre style="padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; border:1px solid #B5B5B5; background-color: #F4F4F4;"> script: | gulp lint gulp build displayName: 'Lint and Build using Gulp' </pre> </code> </div><br> <p><strong>Step 4:</strong> Execution of the last script uploads SFCC code cartridges.</p> <div class="col-md-10"> <code> <pre style="padding: 0px 20px; margin: 0px; font-size: 15px; text-align: left; border:1px solid #B5B5B5; background-color: #F4F4F4;"> script: | npm run uploadCartridge "app*, int*, bc*" displayName: 'Upload cartridges' </pre> </code> </div><br> <p>Once code is pushed to the configured branches, build automatically triggers and uploads code on an SFCC instance.</p> <h5 style="text-align: left;">Steps to Create a Release Pipeline</h5> <p>These pipelines provide release power to multiple servers or instances when they are scheduled to be deployed with the same build artifact – example, for Salesforce, there are development (QA), staging (pre-production), and some sandbox (UAT) servers.</p> <p>Listed below are some more options from Azure DevOps that can be utilized to write the Task(s), which can be executed once and utilized in multiple stages.</p> <p><strong>Option 1: Library</strong></p> <p>Variable groups holding multiple variables can be created with a library for different server instances. One such example is given below:</p> <p><img style="padding: 0px 20px;" width="650px" height="auto" alt="Configuration for Pipeline Variable in Library" src="https://images.prismic.io/gspann/fb4db0a2-64d3-4a41-b246-4dee50220fc8_Image+1_+Configuration+for+Pipeline+Variable+in+Library.jpg?auto=compress,format" /></p> <p>These variables can be used in Tasks created for the release pipeline. These tasks can also be clubbed together to create a task group, which is explained as Option 2 below.</p> <p><strong>Option 2: Task Groups</strong></p> <p>A task group can have two or more tasks clubbed together. It can be used for different release pipelines having common task features and functionality. One such example is given below:</p> <p><img style="padding: 0px 20px;" width="750px" height="auto" alt="Creation of Task Groups from Tasks" src="https://images.prismic.io/gspann/db968b8b-29db-498a-93e0-47619ec78a48_Image+2_+Creation+of+Task+Groups+from+Tasks.jpg?auto=compress,format" /></p> <p>Like this task group, there can be multiple task groups and each of them can be used to create a stage for a release pipeline.</p> <p>How to create a task group?</p> <ul> <li>You can select an option to add tasks while adding a release pipeline.</li> <li>Once the tasks are added, select the tasks that you want to club together for a task group.</li> <li>Right-click and create a task group.</li> </ul> <p>Once all the necessary task groups are created, add different stages to build and deploy the artifact. See how these can be set up in the sequence below:</p> <p><img style="padding: 0px 20px;" width="750px" height="auto" alt="A Release Pipeline Stages with Artifacts" src="https://images.prismic.io/gspann/2d149ab7-6f23-4292-92b4-067457d1af7f_Image+3_+A+Release+Pipeline+Stages+with+Artifacts.jpg?auto=compress,format" /></p> <p>You can build and deploy an artifact to QA, UAT, and staging instances of Salesforce with a single release pipeline. An important thing to note here is that you can set up a code branch to trigger the build of your choice while ensuring that each stage has a job with a task.</p> <p>The screenshot below shows a single task doing the build and deploying within a single task group:</p> <p><img style="padding: 0px 20px;" width="750px" height="auto" alt="Pre-requisite Variables for the Task Group" src="https://images.prismic.io/gspann/c71f7f45-3d35-4ea0-bf0b-a9ef12b46c61_Image+4_+Pre-requisite+Variables+for+the+Task+Group.jpg?auto=compress,format" /></p> <p>With these simple steps, the setup becomes easy and flexible.</p> <h4 style="text-align: left;">Best Practices for Integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud with Azure DevOps</h4> <p>Below are some of the best practices for integrating Salesforce Commerce Cloud with Azure DevOps.</p> <ul> <li>Ensure that the credentials are secured/locked when adding them to ‘Variables.’</li> <li>Create instance-specific library details instead of clubbing them into a single library.</li> <li>Ensure using a single parallel job instead of multiple to avoid additional costs.</li> <li>Verify task groups before using them and assure that the task variable is appropriately defined.</li> <li>Avoid creating each stage with separate tasks instead of the task group because it is challenging to maintain and modify.</li> <li>Never hard-code your credentials in the configuration file. It should not be exposed.</li> <li>Don’t go with a parallel build and deploy, instead use a sequential process.</li> </ul> <p>To integrate Salesforce with Azure DevOps pipelines, a Salesforce account manager access is necessary along with the subscription of Azure DevOps. Since the repository, along with Artifacts and pipelines, lives in a single tool, you do not require a cloud provider other than Azure DevOps. Hence, it’s very easy and efficient to set up as compared to Jenkins on different cloud platforms.</p>