Scenario:

Developer wants to start working on a Feature or Bugfix. He pulls latest master branch and creates a branch: feature/ or bugfix/. He starts adding/changing code and commits multiple times. Once done with making changes on local repo, he pushes the changes to Azure DevOps remote repo. In Azure DevOps, he creates pull request to merge the changes into Master. Once pull request builds fine and all reviews are completed, it is good to be merged to Master using Basic Merge (no Fast Forward) Merge type.

At this point, you expect GitVersion to behave as below for the versioning of the master branch:

  • when changes from a  feature branch (i.e. a branch starting by feature/) are merged, it should automatically increment the Minor number.
  • when changes from a bug fix branch (i.e. a branch starting by bugfix/) are merged, it should automatically increment the Patch number.

Versioning Flow expected is as shown below-

Solution:

We will use GitVersion (Mainline Development), Azure DevOps Pipeline, Basic Merge Type  for Pull Request.

Tools needed:

  • Install GitVersion on your build agent – https://gitversion.net/docs/usage/cli/installation

Pre-requisites:

    • Ensure gitversion is working after install. Run ‘gitversion version’ to check its version.
    • Add following step in Azure DevOps build Pipeline (azure_pipeline.yaml)
trigger:
- main

jobs:
- job: BuildAndTest
  workspace:
    clean: all
  pool:
    name: Self-Hosted-Agent
  steps:
  - task: gitversion/execute@0
    inputs:
      useConfigFile: true
      configFilePath: './GitVersion.yml'
  - script: echo current version is $(GitVersion.SemVer)
    displayName: 'Display calculated version'      
  - task: Bash@3
    inputs:
      targetType: inline
      script: echo "##vso[build.updatebuildnumber]$(SemVer)"
    displayName: 'Update build number'

 

Create base version tag 1.0.0 for remote master branch-

 

>> Create GitVersion.yml and save it in master branch

mode: Mainline
branches:
  feature:
    regex: ^feature?[/-]
    source-branches: [‘main’,’master’]
    tag: {BranchName}
  fix:
    regex: bugfix(es)?[/-]
    source-branches: [‘main’,’master’]
    tag: {BranchName}
ignore:
  sha: []
merge-message-formats: {}




 


>> In Master branch, create this folder structure <repositoryroot>/.azuredevops/pull_request_template/branches/  and then create 2 files in branches folder – feature.md and fix.md




>> Add following content in feature.md and fix.md and save it.


feature.md




Add details about this Feature PR here-
 
Before submitting this PR, please make sure:

- [ ] Your code builds clean without any errors or warnings
- [ ] You are using approved terminology
- [ ] You have added unit tests

DO NOT DELETE: [+semver:minor]





 


fix.md




Add details about this Bugfix PR here-
 
Before submitting this PR, please make sure:

- [ ] Your code builds clean without any errors or warnings
- [ ] You are using approved terminology
- [ ] You have added unit tests

DO NOT DELETE: [+semver:patch]





 


>> Ensure that Master Branch Policy has Build Validation enabled. This ensures that the PullRequest builds successfully before it merges to Master branch.




STEPS:


>> Clone/Pull the latest master branch to your local setup- git pull origin master


>> Create a feature branch from master – git checkout -b  feature/newfeature


>> Commit couple changes in feature branch and push the code to Azure DevOps remote repo- git push origin feature/newfeature


>> Create a Pull request to merge these changes to Master branch, select the template feature.md to fill the PR details as shown






 


>> Once the PR build finishes, it will show the version as below (Note the minor version is bumped by 1)-




>> Now complete the PR and merge it using Basic Merge (no FF) merge type-




 


 


>> The Pipeline shows the final Master version as 1.1.0




>> Now we can try the same process for Bugfix branch. On your local repo, checkout master branch and sync it with remote master repo-


git checkout master


git pull origin master


>> Create Bugfix branch – git checkout -b bugfix/fix1


>> Add couple of commits to this branch and push it to remote repo-


git commit -m “this is bugfix 1” –allow-empty


git commit -m “this is bugfix 2” –allow-empty


git push origin bugfix/fix1


 


>> Create Pull Request for this bugfix branch and select fix.ms from the template-




 


Add details to the template and create the PR-




 


>> This will trigger PR build which will display show the version like




>> Complete the PR and Merge it to Master branch




>>Finally the master branch version will be 1.1.1




 


Summary:


You can use GitVersion (Mainline Development) with Azure DevOps pipeline to create semantic versions for the artifacts. This works well with Basic Merge type Pull Request.