Customizing Team Foundation Build

Team Foundation Build is an extensible system for build Automation that enables end-to-end public builds that integrate with other Visual Studio Team System tools. Team Foundation Build provides a simple wizard-based method to create build types. By using the wizard, you can specify the build computer to use, the solutions to build, the drop location, tests to run, and so on. The result of a build type created through the wizard is a set of MSBuild build scripts that Team Foundation Build uses with the MSBuild engine to run the builds.

Team Foundation Build is designed to be extensible. The New Team Build Type Creation Wizard is designed to create build scripts that meet common build scenarios; however there are some build scenarios that may require customization to wizard-generated scripts. Team Foundation Build includes some common tasks to support actions like running tests and getting sources from source control, but your build process might require that other tasks be run as part of the build process. For example:

  • A build administrator might want to have his output assemblies deployed to a specified location after the compilation is complete but before testing starts.

  • A company might require a specific build numbering system and override one of the default numbering systems included in Team Foundation Build.

  • A developer may want to sign his output assemblies after his build process is finished.

This section discusses how you can customize build processes by writing custom tasks.

In This Section

Team Foundation Build Targets, Tasks, and Properties

Walkthrough: Customizing Team Foundation Build with a Custom Task

Walkthrough: Configuring Team Foundation Build to Build a Visual Studio Setup Project

MSBuild

MSBuild Reference

See Also

Other Resources

Administering Team Foundation Build