Set different levels of pipeline permissions
TFS 2017 | TFS 2015
Note
In Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2018 and previous versions, build and release pipelines are called definitions, runs are called builds, service connections are called service endpoints, stages are called environments, and jobs are called phases.
Pipeline permissions are the permissions associated with pipelines in an Azure DevOps project. Permissions in Azure DevOps are hierarchical and can be set at the organization, server (for on-premises), project, and object levels.
Object-level permissions are designed to be more granular than organization-level permissions. For example, a user could have access to your Azure Repos repository thanks to their organization-level permissions. However, that same user could be prevented from running a pipeline manually because of that pipeline's permissions.
You can increase the security of your pipeline by fine-tuning the object-level permissions associated with your pipeline. To learn more about best practices for pipeline security, see Security Azure Pipelines.
To learn more about how Azure DevOps permissions work overall, including how the permissions hierarchy, see Get started with permissions, access, and security groups.
Prerequisites
- To manage permissions for project-level groups, you'll need to be a Project Administrator. Learn more about project-level group permissions. You'll need to be a member of the Project Administrators group to add users to Azure Pipelines.
- To manage permissions for collection groups, you'll need to be a Project Collection Administrator. Learn more about collection-level group permissions.
Build
Task
Readers
Contributors
Build
Admins
Project Admins
View builds
✔️
✔️
✔️
✔️
View build definition
✔️
✔️
✔️
✔️
Administer build permissions
✔️
✔️
Delete or Edit build definitions
✔️
✔️
✔️
Delete or Destroy builds
✔️
✔️
Edit build quality
✔️
✔️
✔️
Manage build qualities
✔️
✔️
Manage build queue
✔️
✔️
Override check-in validation by build
✔️
Queue builds
✔️
✔️
✔️
Retain indefinitely
✔️
✔️
Stop builds
✔️
✔️
Update build information
✔️
Release
Task
Readers
Contributors
Project Admins
Release
Admins
Approve releases
✔️
✔️
✔️
View releases
✔️
✔️
✔️
✔️
View release definition
✔️
✔️
✔️
✔️
Administer release permissions
✔️
✔️
Delete release definition or release stage
✔️
✔️
✔️
Delete releases
✔️
✔️
✔️
Edit release definition
✔️
✔️
Edit release stage
✔️
✔️
✔️
Manage deployments
✔️
✔️
Manage release approvers
✔️
✔️
✔️
Manage releases
✔️
✔️
Set pipeline permissions
You can update pipeline permissions with security groups or by adding individual users. To learn how to add a user to Azure Pipelines, see Add users to Azure Pipelines.
When it comes to security, there are different best practices and levels of permissiveness.
In many cases, you probably also want to set Delete build pipeline to Allow. Otherwise these team members can't delete even their own build pipelines.
Without Delete builds permission, users cannot delete even their own completed builds. However, keep in mind that they can automatically delete old unneeded builds using retention policies.
We recommend that you do not grant these permissions directly to a person. A better practice is to add the person to the build administrator group or another group, and manage permissions on that group.
Build and YAML pipeline permissions follow a hierarchical model. Defaults for all the permissions can be set at the project level and can be overridden on an individual build pipeline.
To set the permissions at project level for all pipelines in a project, choose Security from the action bar on the main page of Builds hub.
To set or override the permissions for a specific pipeline, choose Security from the context menu of the pipeline.
The following permissions are defined for pipelines. All of these can be set at both the levels.
Pipeline permissions reference
These permissions are defined for pipelines. All of these permissions can be set for both all pipelines in a project or for an individual pipeline.
To learn more about how permissions are set, including inheritance, see About permissions and inheritance. To learn how inheritance is supported for role-based membership, see About security roles
| Permission | Description |
|---|---|
| Administer build permissions | Can change any of the other permissions listed here. |
| Queue builds | Can queue new builds. |
| Delete build pipeline | Can delete build pipeline(s). |
| Delete builds | Can delete builds for a pipeline. Builds that are deleted are retained in the Deleted tab for a period of time before they are destroyed. |
| Destroy builds | Can delete builds from the Deleted tab. |
| Edit build pipeline | Can create pipelines and save any changes to a build pipeline, including configuration variables, triggers, repositories, and retention policy. |
| Edit build quality | Can add tags to a build. |
| Override check-in validation by build | Applies to TFVC gated check-in builds. This does not apply to PR builds. |
| Retain indefinitely | Can toggle the retain indefinitely flag on a build. |
| Stop builds | Can stop builds queued by other team members or by the system. |
| View build pipeline | Can view build pipeline(s). |
| View builds | Can view builds belonging to build pipeline(s). |
| Update build information | It is recommended to leave this alone. It's intended to enable service accounts, not team members. |
| Manage build qualities | Only applies to XAML builds |
| Manage build queue | Only applies to XAML builds |
Default values for these permissions are set for team project collections and project groups. For example, Project Collection Administrators, Project Administrators, and Build Administrators are given all of the above permissions by default.
Once you've been added as a team member, you're a member of the Contributors group. This group permission allows you to define and manage builds and releases. The most common built-in groups include Readers, Contributors, and Project Administrators.
For more information on default permissions, see Default permissions and access quick reference.
Set release permissions
Permissions for release pipelines follow a hierarchical model. Defaults for all the permissions can be set at the project level and can be overridden on an individual release pipeline.
To set permissions at project level for all release definitions in a project, open the shortcut menu from the 
To set or override the permissions for a specific release pipeline, open the shortcut menu from the icon next to that pipeline name. Then choose Security to open the Permissions dialog.
To specify security settings for individual stages in a release pipeline, open the Permissions dialog by choosing Security on the shortcut menu that opens from More actions 
on a stage in the release pipeline editor.
Release permissions reference
The following permissions are defined for releases. The scope column explains whether the permission can be set at the project, release pipeline, or stage level.
| Permission | Description |
|---|---|
| Administer release permissions | Can change any of the other permissions listed here. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline, Stage |
| Create releases | Can create new releases. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
| Delete release pipeline | Can delete release pipeline(s). Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
| Delete release stage | Can delete stage(s) in release pipeline(s). Scopes: Project, Release pipeline, Stage |
| Delete releases | Can delete releases for a pipeline. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
| Edit release pipeline | Can save any changes to a release pipeline, including configuration variables, triggers, artifacts, and retention policy as well as configuration within a stage of the release pipeline. To make changes to a specific stage in a release pipeline, the user also needs Edit release stage permission. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
| Edit release stage | Can edit stage(s) in release pipeline(s). To save the changes to the release pipeline, the user also needs Edit release pipeline permission. This permission also controls whether a user can edit the configuration inside the stage of a specific release instance. The user also needs Manage releases permission to save the modified release. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline, Stage |
| Manage deployments | Can initiate a deployment of a release to a stage. This permission is only for deployments that are manually initiated by selecting the Deploy or Redeploy actions in a release. If the condition on a stage is set to any type of automatic deployment, the system automatically initiates deployment without checking the permission of the user that created the release. If the condition is set to start after some stage, manually initiated deployments do not wait for those stages to be successful. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline, Stage |
| Manage release approvers | Can add or edit approvers for stage(s) in release pipeline(s). This permissions also controls whether a user can edit the approvers inside the stage of a specific release instance. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline, Stage |
| Manage releases | Can edit the configuration in releases. To edit the configuration of a specific stage in a release instance (including variables marked as settable at release time), the user also needs Edit release stage permission. Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
| View release pipeline | Can view release pipeline(s). Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
| View releases | Can view releases belonging to release pipeline(s). Scopes: Project, Release pipeline |
Default values for all of these permissions are set for team project collections and project groups. For example, Project Collection Administrators, Project Administrators, and Release Administrators are given all of the above permissions by default. Contributors are given all permissions except Administer release permissions. Readers, by default, are denied all permissions except View release pipeline and View releases.
Set task group permissions
You can use task groups to combine a sequence of tasks already defined in a pipeline into a single, reusable task. Task groups are defined in the Task groups tab for Azure Pipelines.
Task group permissions follow a hierarchical model. Defaults for all the permissions can be set at the project level and can be overridden on an individual task group pipeline.
Task group permissions reference
| Permission | Description |
|---|---|
| Administer task group permissions | Can add and remove users or groups to task group security. |
| Delete task group | Can delete a task group. |
| Edit task group | Can create, modify, or delete a task group. |
Set agent pool permissions
You can use predefined roles to configure security on agent pools. You can configure this in a hierarchical manner either for all pools, or for an individual pool.
Set library permissions
Permissions for library artifacts, such as variable groups and secure files, are managed by roles. You can use a variable group to store values that you want to make available across multiple build and release pipelines. Roles are also defined to help you configure security on shared library entities such as variable groups. You can configure these roles hierarchically.
Library permissions reference
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Can edit/delete and manage security for library items. |
| Creator | Can create library items. |
| Reader | Can only read library items. |
| User | Can consume library items in pipelines. |
Set service connection permissions
You add users to the following roles from the project-level admin context, Services page. To create and manage these resources, see Service connections for build and release.
If you're having trouble with permissions and service connections, see Troubleshoot Azure Resource Manager service connections.
Service connection permissions reference
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| User | Can use the endpoint when authoring build or release pipelines. |
| Administrator | Can manage membership of all other roles for the service connection as well as use the endpoint to author build or release pipelines. The system automatically adds the user that created the service connection to the Administrator role for that pool. |
Set deployment pool permissions
You can set default security roles for all deployment groups and manage security roles for an individual deployment group.
Deployment pool permissions reference
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Reader | Can only view deployment pools. |
| Service Account | Can view agents, create sessions, and listen for jobs from the agent pool. |
| User | Can view and use the deployment pool for creating deployment groups. |
| Administrator | Can administer, manage, view and use deployment pools. |
Related notes
- Set build and release permissions
- Default permissions and access
- Permissions and groups reference
- Troubleshoot Azure Resource Manager service connections
FAQ
Why can't I create a new pipeline?
You need edit build pipeline permissions to create a new pipeline. To add the permission, open the security settings for all pipelines and verify that Edit build pipeline is set to Allow for your security group.
If you're still unable to create a pipeline after updating this permission, check to see if your access level is set to Stakeholder. If you have stakeholder access, change your access to Basic.