Creating Team Build Types

I was answering a question related to programmatically creating team build types today and realized there weren’t too many examples on the web.  I didn’t see any examples that included all the details I was looking for – for example:

• Adding the solution to be built to the new build type
• Turning on/off test execution
• Turning on/off code analysis

An example containing these details may exist, I just didn’t come across it during my initial search.

So, with that said, I decided to post the main part of the example application I put together to test out some concepts.  The items listed above are included in the example code below.

The example code includes two methods:

• CreateBuildType – this method accepts six arguments that can be used to programmatically create a new build type.
• VersionControlItemExists – this is a helper method that determines whether an item already exists in version control.

Although the example below can be used to create a new build type “as is”, there is always room for improvement.  For example:

• Add a parameter to specify the default build agent.  Currently, the first build agent returned is used as the default when creating the build type.
• Add a parameter to control the exact placement of the build type in version control (a common pattern is used in the example below).
• Throw exceptions instead of displaying message boxes when exceptional conditions arise.  The message boxes were used for example purposes only.

With that said, here is the source code…

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Common;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Common;

private static bool CreateBuildType(string serverName, string teamProject, string buildName, string solutionPath, string dropFolder, bool runTests)
{
// Get a connection to Team Foundation Server
    TeamFoundationServer tfServer = TeamFoundationServerFactory.GetServer(serverName, new UICredentialsProvider());

// Get a reference to a build service
    IBuildServer buildServer = (IBuildServer)tfServer.GetService(typeof(IBuildServer));

// Get a list of build agents associated with the specified team project
    IBuildAgent[] buildAgents = buildServer.QueryBuildAgents(teamProject);

if (buildAgents.Length == 0)
    {
        MessageBox.Show(
@"The specified Team Project does not have any build agents associated with it.  Please create at least one build agent.",
"No Default Build Agent Found",
            MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Warning);

return false;
    }

// Create the new build type definition
    IBuildDefinition buildType = buildServer.CreateBuildDefinition(teamProject);

// Specify the name of the new build type
    buildType.Name = buildName;

// Specify where the new build type should be stored in version control
    buildType.ConfigurationFolderPath = string.Format(@"$/{0}/TeamBuildTypes/{1}", teamProject, buildName);

// Set the default build agent
    buildType.DefaultBuildAgent = buildAgents[0];

// Set the default drop location
    buildType.DefaultDropLocation = dropFolder;

if (!VersionControlItemExists(tfServer, buildType.ConfigurationFolderPath))
    {
        IProjectFile projectFile = buildType.CreateProjectFile();

// Add a new solution to be built to the project
        ISolutionToBuild solution = projectFile.AddSolutionToBuild();

// Set the path of the solution to build
        solution.SolutionPath = solutionPath;

// Specify whether tests should be ran or not
        projectFile.RunTest = runTests;

// Run code analysis if the project is setup to do so
        projectFile.RunCodeAnalysis =
            CodeAnalysisRunType.Default;

// Save the project file
        projectFile.Save(buildType.ConfigurationFolderPath);

// Save the new build type
        buildType.Save();
    }
else
    {
// The specified build type already exists
        MessageBox.Show(
"The specified Build Type already exists.  Please specify a different Build Type name.",
"Build Type Already Exists",
            MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Warning);

return false;
    }

return true;
}

private static bool VersionControlItemExists(TeamFoundationServer tfServer, string itemPath)
{
string projectFilePath = VersionControlPath.Combine(itemPath, BuildConstants.ProjectFileName);

return ((VersionControlServer)tfServer.GetService(typeof(VersionControlServer))).ServerItemExists(
            projectFilePath, VersionSpec.Latest, DeletedState.NonDeleted, ItemType.File);
}