An interesting feature of Azure DevOps (formerly known as Team Foundation Server) is the so called gated check-in. What is a gated check-in? In simple terms, every time a developer commits some code a build machine will try to compile this shelveset before merging it into the current code repository. This feature is available to both Azure DevOps Service, which is Microsoft’s cloud service, and Azure DevOps Server, which is the exact same thing but on-premises.

As a developer you’d realise that the gated check-in feature is on because when you try to commit your changes you get prompted with a window similar to this.

We’re OK with it so we’re going to go ahead and click on Build Changes, and then after that we can notice a notification in the Team Explorer window.

I like to click on the link where it says here. This opens a new window (see below) in Visual Studio. I tend to keep that open until the build agent is ready and the gated check-in is complete.

Clicking on the View Build Details link would open a new window in your internet browser and from there you can see all the processes of the build agent. A successful check-in is evident as the text and icons would turn green in both the internet browser and Visual Studio. For that same reason I like to keep the Build Request window open in Visual Studio as we get the option to reconcile workspace straight away, screenshot below. This action will basically remove all the new checked-in files from the Pending Changes section in Team Explorer.

In case you closed the window after a successful check-in, or never really opened it, another way you can reconcile your workspace is from the Builds section in Team Explorer. Find your most recent successful build, right click and reconcile.

That should be it for today, till next post,
Bjorn