AI Work Item Assistant

Bring AI to Azure DevOps Boards. The AI Work Item Assistant helps teams generate, refine, and understand work items using Azure OpenAI, right inside Azure DevOps. Create higher‑quality work items faster, keep discussions actionable, and unlock insights without leaving your boards.

Table of Contents

1. Key Capabilities
2. Requirements & Compatibility
3. Installation
4. Setup & Validation
5. How to Use
6. Administration & Security
7. Resources
8. Troubleshooting
9. Support
10. Privacy Policy
11. Terms of Use

Key Capabilities

• AI Work Item Generator: Turn ideas, problem statements, or user feedback into structured work items with suggested title, description, and acceptance criteria.

• Refine with AI: Improve existing work items field‑by‑field (e.g., Title, Description, Acceptance Criteria) using guided prompts and safe preview.

• AI Child Item Generator: Generate recommended child items for Features or User Stories and draft them in a click.

• AI Work Item Insights: Ask natural‑language questions about a work item; summarize discussions, highlight decisions and risks, and track progress.

• Seamless Integration: Integrates smoothly with your existing Azure DevOps environment.

• Context enrichment (optional):

  • Azure AI Document Intelligence to extract content from PDFs, Office docs, images, and more.

    

  • Azure AI Search to index project context (e.g., wikis) and ground LLM responses with your content.

    

• Admin controls: Organization and Project settings for Azure OpenAI, model overrides for Insights, supported work item types, and field‑level guidance.

  

  

  

Requirements & Compatibility

• Azure DevOps Services (cloud) organization.
• Azure OpenAI resource with endpoint, API key, and a deployment model suitable for chat completions.
• Recommended model context length: 32K tokens or higher (e.g., GPT‑4‑32k, GPT‑4.1 32k, GPT-5 or newer models from Azure OpenAI Service Foundry). Newer Azure OpenAI chat models with similar or larger context lengths are supported.
• Permissions: Project Collection Administrator for org‑level settings; Project Administrator for project‑level settings.

Installation

To install the AI Work Item Assistant, follow these steps:

1. Install the Extension: Click on the "Get it free" button and follow the steps to install the extension to your Azure DevOps organization.

2. Choose your Azure DevOps organization and click Install to confirm the installation.

   

3. Configure Permissions: Ensure that the necessary permissions are granted for the extension to access and manage work items in your projects.

Setup & Validation ✅

In Azure DevOps, open Organization Settings or Project Settings and find “AI Work Item Assistant”.

1. Configure Azure OpenAI

   • Set the Azure OpenAI endpoint URL, API key, and deployment model name.
   • Save or Update settings, then select Validate OpenAI Settings.

2. (Optional) Enable document understanding

   • Under Azure AI Document Intelligence, configure the service endpoint and API key to extract content from files.

3. (Optional) Ground responses with your content

   • Under RAG Context, configure Azure AI Search endpoint and API key to index project documents (e.g., wikis) and provide additional context to the model.

4. (Optional) Choose supported work item types and fields

   • Use Work Item Types to enable experiences (generator, refinement, child items) and define field guidance for higher‑quality results.

How to Use 🎯

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• Generate new items

  1. Open Boards → AI Work Item Generator
  2. Enter your idea or paste content; optionally attach files.
  3. Click Generate, select a draft, then Save.

  

  

  

• Generate child items (AI Child Item Generator)

  1. Open a Feature or User Story or any work item in Azure DevOps and select AI Child Item Generator.
  2. Click Generate and review the suggested child items (title, description, acceptance criteria, etc.).
  3. Select the items to create, edit as needed, then Save to add them as child work items.

  

  

• Refine an existing item

  1. Open any work item and select Refine with AI
  2. Choose the field to improve, enter a prompt, preview changes, then Apply.

  

  

• Get Insights

  1. In a work item, choose More actions → AI Work Item Insights
  2. Ask natural-language queries: summarize discussions, extract decisions, or track progress.

  

  

Administration & Security 🔒

• AI content is generated via your configured Azure OpenAI endpoint. Configure role‑based access to org/project settings as needed.
• Always review AI‑generated content before saving. Avoid uploading highly sensitive documents.

Resources

• Installation & Setup
• FAQ
• Cost Overview
• Contact & Support
• Product Details

Troubleshooting

If the extension does not work as expected, check the following:

• Verify your Azure OpenAI connection is active and correctly configured.
• Ensure the AI Work Item Assistant is using an Azure OpenAI model with at least 32K tokens.
• Confirm that you have administrator permissions to configure extensions.

Support

For support and feedback, please visit the Contact & Support Page and provide your feedback.

Privacy Policy

This extension follows the Microsoft Privacy Statement. For details about how data may be collected, used, and protected, please review the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

If your organization maintains its own privacy policy for Azure DevOps extensions, follow your internal guidance.

Terms of Use

By installing and using this extension, you agree to the applicable Microsoft Terms of Use and your organization’s policies for Azure DevOps extensions:

• Microsoft Terms of Use
• Microsoft Services Agreement

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