Share via


Customizable Team Foundation Build Properties

MSBuild properties are key-value pairs that can be used to configure builds. For more information, see MSBuild Properties.

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets file defines several MSBuild targets, tasks, and properties for Team Foundation Build. These properties can be modified in the TfsBuild.proj file to:

  • Pass values to Team Foundation Build tasks and targets.

  • Override certain build actions.

For more information about the TfsBuld.proj file, see Understanding Team Foundation Build Configuration Files.

Properties that can be Overridden

The following table lists the properties that are defined for Team Foundation Build and can be overridden in the TfsBuild.proj file to customize the build process.

Property Description

SkipClean

Set this property to skip a clean action.

SkipGet

Set this property to skip a get action.

SkipLabel

Set this property to skip a labeling action.

SkipInitializeWorkspace

Set this property to skip a workspace creation action.

SkipPostBuild

Set this property to skip gathering associated changesets and work items.

SkipDropBuild

Set this property to skip a drop build action.

SkipWorkItemCreation

Set this property to skip work item creation on build failure.

AdditionalVCOverrides

Property sheets that are passed to the Visual C++ solutions in the build process.

SolutionRoot

Specifies the root of the sources folder on build computer. Use this property to specify a file in the build directory regarding the sources folder. For example:

SourceFiles="$(SolutionRoot)\HelloWorldTest\HelloWorldTestInstaller\Debug\HelloWorldTestInstaller.msi

Properties Used to Customize Tasks

Each default Team Foundation Build task in the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets file also includes a set of properties that can be used to customize the task. For more information about Team Foundation Build tasks, see Team Foundation Build Tasks. For example, the CreateNewWorkItem task is defined as follows.

<!-- Create WorkItem for build failure -->
    <CreateNewWorkItem
          BuildId="$(BuildNumber)"
          Description="$(WorkItemDescription)"
          TeamProject="$(TeamProject)"
          TeamFoundationServerUrl="$(TeamFoundationServerUrl)"
          Title="$(WorkItemTitle)"
          WorkItemFieldValues="$(WorkItemFieldValues)"
          WorkItemType="$(WorkItemType)"
          ContinueOnError="true" />

To customize the work item that is created on build failure, you set the WorkItemFieldValues in the TfsBuild.proj file:

Note

The following assumes that the Areapath and IterationPath properties have also been set.

<WorkItemFieldValues>Area Path=$(AreaPath);Iteration Path=$(IterationPath);Severity=1;Priority=0;Symptom=build break;Steps To Reproduce=Start the build using Team Build;Source=Development;How Found=Build Break;Assigned To=Active</WorkItemFieldValues>

See Also

Tasks

How To: Use Environment Variables in a Build

Concepts

Understanding Team Foundation Build Configuration Files