How to set the “Version control path to custom assemblies” for custom MSBuild tasks

build-agentmsbuildtfs

With TFS 2010 build controllers/agents there is the option to set a version control path to custom assemblies that will be available on all build agents. The documentation states that this works for custom workflow activities as well as custom MSBuild tasks (about in the middle of the page):

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330987.aspx

Does someone know how this feature can be used for custom MSBuild tasks? I checked into version control an assembly with a custom task and set the option on our build controller to the correct version control path. But I don't know where the assembly will be on the build agent and how I can reference it from within my MSBuild targets file (i.e., UsingTask).

I even searched for the assembly on the build agent but could not find it…

Any help is very much appreciated!

Best Answer

Here's the answer: the contents of the version control path is stored on the build agent in this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\BuildAgent\<num>\

where <user> is the account that runs the build service, and <num> is the number of your build agent.

I have no clue why it was not there at first and what caused the build agent to finally fetch it from source control. Maybe just some patience is required if the version control path is changed or its contents gets updated?

Related Solutions

.net – Use custom MSBuild tasks from the same solution

We tried this and we found that you have to place the UsingTask at the top of the project file (and have all your paths right). However once thats in place and the task loads up it will only work once. After that the build starts failing because it cant copy the DLL that the task is in. We are actually running a post build task thats inside the same assembly/project that we are building.

What we did to solve this is to launch a separate MSBuild process on a seperate MSBuild file to run the Post Build tasks. That way the DLL is not loaded until after its built and copied to the bin directory.

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
    <Exec Command="$(MSBuildBinPath)\MSBuild.exe 
          &quot;$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\PostBuild.msbuild&quot; 
          /property:SomeProperty=$(SomeProperty)" />
</Target>

Note that you can pass properties into this sub-build task on the command line.

And the PostBuild.msbuild looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="PostBuild" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="4.0">
    <UsingTask TaskName="PostBuild" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\bin\AssemblyThatJustBuiltAndContainsBuildTask.dll" />
    <PropertyGroup>
        <SomeProperty>SomePropertyDefaultValue</SomeProperty>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <Target Name="PostBuild">
        <MyPostBuildTask SomeProperty="$(SomeProperty)" />
    </Target>
</Project>

Git – How to retrieve the hash for the current commit in Git

To turn arbitrary extended object reference into SHA-1, use simply git-rev-parse, for example

git rev-parse HEAD

git rev-parse --verify HEAD

You can also retrieve the short version like this

git rev-parse --short HEAD

Sidenote: If you want to turn references (branches and tags) into SHA-1, there is git show-ref and git for-each-ref.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

.net – Use custom MSBuild tasks from the same solution

Git – How to retrieve the hash for the current commit in Git

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