YAML pipeline editor
Azure DevOps Server 2019
Azure Pipelines provides a YAML pipeline editor that you can use to author and edit your pipelines. The YAML editor is based on the Monaco Editor. The editor provides tools like Intellisense support and a task assistant to provide guidance while you edit a pipeline.
This article shows you how to edit your pipelines using the YAML Pipeline editor, but you can also edit pipelines by modifying the azure-pipelines.yml file directly in your pipeline's repository using a text editor of your choice, or by using a tool like Visual Studio Code and the Azure Pipelines for VS Code extension.
Important
The YAML pipeline editor was introduced in Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1. If you're using Azure DevOps Server 2019 RTW, the YAML pipeline editor described in this article isn't available, but you can edit your YAML using the text editor of your choice and check it into your pipeline's repository.
Edit a YAML pipeline
To access the YAML pipeline editor, do the following steps.
Sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}).Select your project, choose Pipelines > Pipelines, and then select the pipeline you want to edit.
Choose Edit.
Make edits to your pipeline using Intellisense keyboard shortcuts and the task assistant for guidance.
Use keyboard shortcuts
The YAML pipeline editor provides several keyboard shortcuts, which we show in the following examples.
Choose Ctrl+Space for Intellisense support while you're editing the YAML pipeline.
Choose F1 (Fn+F1 on Mac) to display the command palette and view the available keyboard shortcuts.
Use task assistant
The task assistant provides a method for adding tasks to your YAML pipeline.
To display the task assistant, edit your YAML pipeline and choose Show assistant.
To hide the task assistant, choose Hide assistant.
To use the task assistant, browse or search for tasks in the Tasks pane.
Select the desired task and configure its inputs.
Choose Add to insert the task YAML into your pipeline.
- Edit the inserted YAML to make more configuration changes to the task.
Manage pipeline variables
You can manage pipeline variables both from within your YAML pipeline and from the pipeline settings UI.
With Azure DevOps 2019 Update 1, you can manage your pipeline variables using the pipeline settings UI.
To manage pipeline variables, do the following steps.
Edit your YAML pipeline and choose Variables to manage pipeline variables.
Choose from the following functions:
- New variable: to add your first variable.
- Add
: to add subsequent variables. - Variable name to edit a variable.
- Delete
: to delete a variable.
To manage pipelines variables in the pipeline settings UI, do the following steps.
Edit the pipeline and choose More actions > Triggers.
Choose Variables.
For more information on working with pipeline variables, see Define variables.
Configure the default agent pool
If a YAML pipeline doesn't specify an agent pool, the agent pool configured in the Default agent pool for YAML setting is used. This pool is also used for post-run cleanup tasks.
To view and configure the Default agent pool for YAML setting:
Edit the pipeline and choose More actions > Triggers.
Choose YAML, and select the desired agent pool using the Default agent pool for YAML dropdown list.
Default agent pool for YAML is configured on a per-pipeline basis.
Manage settings using the pipeline settings UI
Some YAML pipeline settings are configured using the pipeline settings UI instead of in the YAML file.
Edit the pipeline and choose More actions > Triggers.
From the pipeline settings UI, choose the tab of the setting to configure.
