PR Dependency

Block a pull request from completing until one or more other pull requests have been merged. Zero infrastructure required — the extension runs entirely in the browser using Azure DevOps platform services.

What is added on installation

• A Dependencies tab on every pull request

Functionality

Adding a dependency — Open the pull request you want to block, click the Dependencies tab, and enter either a PR number (for a PR in the same repository) or a full Azure DevOps PR URL (for a PR in a different repository or project within the same organisation). Click Add or press Enter.

The PR's description is updated to show the dependency chain.

The extension validates that the PR exists, saves it as a dependency, and immediately evaluates whether all dependencies are resolved. A status check is posted to the current PR reflecting the outcome.

Status per blocking PR — Each dependency is shown as a row with a status:

A banner at the top of the Dependencies tab shows the overall status posted to the PR.

Re-evaluate — Click the refresh button at any time to re-check the status of all dependencies.

Remove a dependency — Click the remove button on a dependency row to delete it.

Branch policy — When the first dependency is added, the extension automatically creates a conditional branch status-check policy on the target branch. This policy prevents the Complete button from being active until the status check shows all dependencies resolved. The status is re-evaluated every time the Dependencies tab is opened, so no background service or webhook is needed.

Azure DevOps pre-requisites

Automatically creating the branch policy requires the Manage branch policies permission on the repository. Without this permission, dependencies are still tracked and the status is posted, but the policy must be created manually.

To set up the policy manually: go to Project Settings → Repositories → [your repo] → Policies, select the target branch, add a Status policy, set the genre to pr-dependency, the name to blocking-pr, and set applicability to Conditional.

Configuration

None. The extension configures itself when the first dependency is added to a pull request.

Privacy and data storage

Dependency data is stored in the Azure DevOps Extension Data Service, scoped to your organisation. The data is visible to all contributors with access to the pull request.

Permissions

Questions, ideas, or bugs?

Open an issue on GitHub — we would love to hear from you.