Azure Pipelines

Dagger provides a programmable container engine that allows you to replace your YAML Azure Pipelines definitions with Dagger Functions written in a regular programming language. This allows you to execute your pipeline the same way locally and in CI, with the additional benefit of intelligent caching.

How it works

When running a CI pipeline with Dagger using Azure Pipelines, the general workflow looks like this:

1. Azure Pipelines receives a trigger based on a repository event.
2. Azure Pipelines begins processing the steps in the azure-pipelines.yml file.
3. Azure Pipelines downloads the Dagger CLI.
4. Azure Pipelines executes one (or more) Dagger CLI commands, such as dagger call ....
5. The Dagger CLI attempts to find an existing Dagger Engine or spins up a new one inside the Azure Pipelines runner.
6. The Dagger CLI calls the specified Dagger Function and sends telemetry to Dagger Cloud if the DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN environment variable is set.
7. The pipeline completes with success or failure. Logs appear in Azure Pipelines as usual.

Prerequisites

• An Azure DevOps organization and project
• An Azure Pipelines agent to run jobs connected to the project

Examples

Docker executor

The following example demonstrates how to call a Dagger Function in an Azure Pipeline.

azure-pipelines.yml

trigger:
- main

pool:
  name: 'Azure Pipelines'
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest

steps:
# full clone checkout required to prevent azure pipeline traces from being orphaned in the Dagger Cloud UI
- checkout: self
  fetchDepth: 0
  displayName: 'Checkout Source Code, fetch full history'
# branch checkout required to prevent azure pipeline traces from being orphaned in the Dagger Cloud UI
- script: git checkout $(Build.SourceBranchName)
  displayName: 'Checkout Source Branch'
- script: curl -fsSL https://dl.dagger.io/dagger/install.sh | BIN_DIR=$HOME/.local/bin sh
  displayName: 'Install Dagger CLI'
- script: dagger -m github.com/shykes/daggerverse/hello@v0.1.2 call hello --greeting="bonjour" --name="monde"
  displayName: 'Call Dagger Function'
  env:
    # assumes the Dagger Cloud token is
    # in a secret named DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN
    # set via the Azure Pipeline settings UI/CLI
    # the secret is then explicitly mapped to the script env
    DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN: $(DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN)

The following is a more complex example demonstrating how to create an Azure Pipeline that checks out source code, calls a Dagger Function to test the project, and then calls another Dagger Function to build and publish a container image of the project. This example uses a simple Go application and assumes that you have already imported it into your Azure DevOps project repository.

azure-pipelines.yml

trigger:
- main

pool:
  name: 'Azure Pipelines'
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest

steps:
# full clone checkout required to prevent azure pipeline traces from being orphaned in the Dagger Cloud UI
- checkout: self
  fetchDepth: 0
  displayName: 'Checkout Source Code, fetch full history'
# branch checkout required to prevent azure pipeline traces from being orphaned in the Dagger Cloud UI
- script: git checkout $(Build.SourceBranchName)
  displayName: 'Checkout Source Branch'
- script: curl -fsSL https://dl.dagger.io/dagger/install.sh | BIN_DIR=$HOME/.local/bin sh
  displayName: 'Install Dagger CLI'
- script: dagger -m github.com/kpenfound/dagger-modules/golang@v0.2.0 call test --source=.
  displayName: 'Test'
  env:
    # assumes the Dagger Cloud token is
    # in a secret named DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN
    # set via the Azure Pipeline settings UI/CLI
    # the secret is then explicitly mapped to the script env
    DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN: $(DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN)
- script: dagger -m github.com/kpenfound/dagger-modules/golang@v0.2.0 call build-container --source=. --args=. publish --address=ttl.sh/my-app-$RANDOM
  displayName: 'Build'
  env:
    DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN: $(DAGGER_CLOUD_TOKEN)

Resources

If you have any questions about additional ways to use Azure Pipelines with Dagger, join our Discord and ask your questions in our help channel.

About Azure Pipelines

Azure Pipelines is the CI/CD service of Azure DevOps. It enables developers to quickly and easily build, test and deploy their applications, and works with multiple languages and platforms. It supports both self-hosted and managed agents.