Variable Seeder for Azure DevOps Pipelines

Variable Seeder is a pipeline task (utility) extension for Azure DevOps which takes a json file and create build and deployment pipeline variables based on the JSON.

Benefits

• Same variables may be used for different environments - simply switch by environment variable.
  So your pipelines will get environment aware.
• Additionaly all variables are maintained in one place.

Usage

Define a JSON file that contains variables used by a pipeline and specify a value for each environment for example "dev", "test" and "prod".

Example JSON file with variables for each environment

{
	"sqls_name":{
		"dev" :"dbsrv_dev",
		"test": "dbsrv_test",
		"prod": "dbsrv_prod"
	},
	"sqls_username":{
		"dev" :"sqlAdmin_dev",
		"test": "sqlAdmin_test",
		"prod": "sqlAdmin_prod"
	},
	"db_name":{
		"dev" :"OnTrackConnectorDB_dev",
		"test": "OnTrackConnectorDB_test",
		"prod": "OnTrackConnectorDB_prod"
	},
	"db_sku":{
		"dev" :"Basic_dev",
		"test": "Basic_test",
		"prod": "Basic_prod"
	},
	"auditDB_retentionDays":{
		"dev" :"0 dev",
		"test": "0 test",
		"prod": "20 prod"
	}
}

Parameters

Configure Variable-Seeder with a display name, the file name of the varibale JSON and a environment that should be used:

• displayName the name for the task
• jsonFilePath the JSON file that contains the variables for each environment
• environment: a specific environemnt to be used for further pipeline commands

Result

The variables are set and may be used in a powershell script like this:

Write-Host "$(db_sku)" 
Write-Host "$(sqls_name)"

YAML Notation

The full pipeline YAML file may look like this:

steps:
    - task: whiteduck-software.devops-variable-seeder.variableseeder.variableseeder@1
    displayName: 'Seed environemnt variables'
    inputs:
    jsonFilePath: 'tests/bsp_variables.json'
    environment: test
steps:
    - powershell: |
        Write-Host "$(db_sku)"
        Write-Host "$(sqls_name)"
    displayName: 'PowerShell Script'