Azure Selected

# Build ASP.NET apps with .NET Framework

From: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/apps/aspnet/build-aspnet-4

By: Abel Wang | 4/15/2020

Azure DevOps .NET Framework

Note

This article focuses on building .NET Framework projects with Azure Pipelines. For help with .NET Core projects, see .NET Core (opens new window).

# Create your first pipeline

Are you new to Azure Pipelines? If so, then we recommend you try this section before moving on to other sections.

# Get the code

Fork this repo in GitHub:

https://github.com/Microsoft/devops-project-samples.git

The sample repo includes several different projects, and the sample application for this article is located in the following path:

https://github.com/Microsoft/devops-project-samples/tree/master/dotnet/aspnet/webapp/Application

Your azure-pipelines.yml file needs to run from within the dotnet/aspnet/webapp/Applicationfolder for the build to complete successfully.

The sample app is a Visual Studio solution that has two projects:

  • An ASP.NET Web Application project that targets .NET Framework 4.5
  • A Unit Test project

# Sign in to Azure Pipelines

Sign in to Azure Pipelines (opens new window). After you sign in, your browser goes to https://dev.azure.com/my-organization-name and displays your Azure DevOps dashboard.

Within your selected organization, create a project. If you don't have any projects in your organization, you see a Create a project to get started screen. Otherwise, select the Create Project button in the upper-right corner of the dashboard.

  • After you have the sample code in your own repository, create a pipeline using the instructions in Create your first pipeline (opens new window) and select the ASP.NET template. This automatically adds the tasks required to build the code in the sample repository.
  • Save the pipeline and queue a build to see it in action.

# Build environment

You can use Azure Pipelines to build your .NET Framework projects without needing to set up any infrastructure of your own. The Microsoft-hosted agents (opens new window) in Azure Pipelines have several released versions of Visual Studio pre-installed to help you build your projects.

  • Use windows-2019 for Windows Server 2019 with Visual Studio 2019
  • Use vs2017-win2016 for Windows Server 2016 with Visual Studio 2017

You can also use a self-hosted agent (opens new window) to run your builds. This is particularly helpful if you have a large repository and you want to avoid downloading the source code to a fresh machine for every build.