Azure Pipelines Inbox
Monitor your Azure DevOps pipeline runs live from VS Code's sidebar, without switching to
the browser — the Stage → Job → Task timeline and logs update in real time, and a notification
tells you when a run finishes. When a build fails, jump straight to the first error and copy it,
trimmed and with context, into your AI assistant (Cursor, Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) to fix.
Features
- Runs inbox — a tree of recent runs per subscribed project, with status icons that update in place.
- Live timeline — expand a run to see its Stage → Job → Task tree; in-progress steps spin and flip to
pass/fail as they finish.
- Live log tail — open the logs for any step in a rich panel that appends new lines while the step runs,
with
##[error] / ##[warning] / ##[section] highlighting.
- Jump to first error — on a failed run, one click (the 🐛 button or View First Error) opens the
first failed step's log scrolled straight to the error.
- Copy for AI — copy a step's log straight into your AI chat (Cursor, Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT). It adds a
short context header (pipeline, step, result, branch, link) and, for long logs, trims to the errors plus
surrounding context so the important part fits the model's window. A plain Copy log is there too.
- Pipelines view — a second tree listing every pipeline in your subscribed projects, for browsing and
running them directly (see Run actions).
- Filters — only my runs, status (all / succeeded / failed), and branch.
- Run actions — Run a pipeline (▶ on each pipeline in the Pipelines view, with a branch
prompt), cancel an in-progress run, or — from a run's right-click menu — re-run the whole
pipeline or re-run just the failed jobs. The first time you use one, it walks you through a
one-time write-token setup; until then your sign-in stays read-only.
It polls only while something is in progress, then goes idle. Finished runs surface as a desktop
notification (configurable via notifyOnComplete) and a ▶ N running / ✖ N failed status-bar summary
that jumps you back to the inbox.
The log panel tailing a step — error/warning highlighting, with Copy for AI and Copy log in the header.
Install
Search Azure Pipelines Inbox in the Extensions view. It's published to both the
VS Code Marketplace
and Open VSX, so it installs in
VS Code as well as Cursor, VSCodium, and Windsurf.
Getting started
- Run Azure Pipelines: Sign In and enter your organization URL (e.g.
https://dev.azure.com/contoso)
and a Personal Access Token with Build (Read) and Project and Team (Read) scopes.
- Run Azure Pipelines: Manage Subscriptions and pick the projects whose pipelines you want to see.
- Expand a run to watch its timeline; click a step (or use View Logs) to tail its log.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
azurePipelines.organizationUrl |
"" |
Azure DevOps organization URL. |
azurePipelines.subscriptions |
[] |
Subscribed projects (managed via Manage Subscriptions). |
azurePipelines.onlyMyRuns |
false |
Only show runs you triggered. |
azurePipelines.statusFilter |
all |
all / succeeded / failed. |
azurePipelines.branchFilter |
"" |
Only show runs for this branch. |
azurePipelines.runsTop |
25 |
Max runs listed per project. |
azurePipelines.pollSeconds |
4 |
Poll interval (seconds) for in-progress runs and tailing logs. |
azurePipelines.notifyOnComplete |
mine |
Notify when a tracked run finishes: off / mine / all. |
azurePipelines.enableActions |
false |
Enable Cancel / Re-run (prompts for a Build Read & Execute PAT). |
Run actions (run / cancel / re-run)
The actions are always available, but the extension stays read-only by default: the first time
you trigger one, it asks for a Personal Access Token with Build (Read & Execute) (a one-time setup —
this token is a superset of read, so your existing read features keep working). Cancel out and nothing
changes. You can also do this up front via Azure Pipelines: Enable Run Actions.
The actions:
- Run Pipeline — the ▶ button on each pipeline in the Pipelines view; prompts for a branch (leave it
empty to run the pipeline's default branch).
- Cancel Run — on an in-progress run.
- Re-run Pipeline — right-click a run; queues a fresh run of the whole pipeline.
- Re-run Failed Jobs — right-click a failed run; retries only the failed stages in place (the same
run goes back to in-progress), like the Azure DevOps web UI's "Rerun failed jobs". Pipelines without
stages (classic builds) fall back to a full re-run.
The re-run actions live in the right-click menu only (no hover buttons), so a stray click on a run row
can never queue a build.
How "live" works
Azure DevOps has no public push API; its own web UI builds the live view by polling. This extension
does the same via azure-devops-node-api: it polls the build timeline to update the step tree and
re-reads the active step's log lines from an advancing offset to append output. Polling runs only
while a run is in progress.
Development
npm install
npm run build # esbuild bundle → dist/extension.js
npm run watch # rebuild on change (for F5)
npm run compile # tsc --noEmit type-check
npm run lint
Press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host.
The Marketplace icon (media/icon.png) is generated from scripts/gen-icon.js — run
node scripts/gen-icon.js to regenerate it after tweaking the design.
More from this author
- Azure Boards Inbox
— a focused sidebar inbox for your assigned work items, pull requests, and comments, organized by project
with live counts and one-click actions.
