Donovan Brown

NOTE:  This has been replaced by yo Team.

After releasing yo VSTS I started getting requests for a port to support Team Foundation Server.  Although the REST APIs are similar they are at different versions and some capabilities of Team Services have not made it to Team Foundation Server yet. Therefore, this requires a completely different generator.

yo TFS allows you to create complete DevOps pipelines by simply answering a few questions.  You no longer have to visit the web interface to configure TFS.

To use yo TFS you must have the following:

• Team Foundation Server 2017 with the following extensions
  • Docker
• Configured build agent with the following capabilities
  • Maven
  • Bower
  • Node.js
  • NPM
  • .NET Core SDK
  • Azure PowerShell
  • Docker Toolbox
  • .NET Framework 3.5
  • Git
• Team Foundation Server Personal Access Token
• Azure Subscription
• Node.js
• NPM
• Yeoman
• Git

The goal of yo TFS and yo VSTS is to automate the automation. I have noticed many struggle to configure everything correctly to build a complete DevOps pipeline.  Using yo TFS/VSTS you no longer have too.  The entire pipeline will be created for you in just a few minutes.  Then all your team has to do is commit changes and watch them flow into Azure App Service or a Docker container.

After installing Yeoman with NPM:

npm install –g yo

You can use the yo command to install the TFS Generator.  Simply type yo and use the menu to install a generator and search for TFS.  After the generator is installed you can select it from the menu to create your first pipeline.

While I was porting from VSTS to TFS I took this opportunity to improve on my original design.  I like the changes so much I intend to incorporate them into the next release of yo VSTS as well.  One of the first changes I made was to break the solution down into smaller sub generators. In the original design there were only 4 sub generators.  One for each language Java, Node.js and .NET Core and one for all of VSTS which included code for creating the Project, Git, Azure Service Endpoints, Docker Service Endpoints, Build and Release.  This required you to rerun the entire generator even if all you wanted was a build. So this time around each of those areas is a separate sub generator that can be run individually.  This increased the total number of sub generators from four to eleven.  The main generator is TFS with the following sub generators:

• asp - scaffolds a .NET Core application using Razor and Bootstrap
• azure - creates an Azure Service Endpoint
• build - creates a CI build
• docker - creates a Docker Service Endpoint
• git - clones the Git repo and adds & commits the initial files
• java - scaffolds a Java application using Tiles and Bootstrap
• node - scaffolds a Node.js application using Pug and Bootstrap
• pipeline - creates a CI build and CD release
• project - creates the team project
• registry - creates Docker Registry Service Endpoint
• release - creates a release

To use the main generator simply enter

yo tfs

If you want to use any of the sub generators individually simply add a : and the name of the desired sub generator.  For example to create a project type

yo tfs:project 

Each generator will prompt you for the required information for that sub generator.

yo tfs
? What is your TFS URL including collection
  i.e. http://tfs:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection? http://localhost:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection
? What is your TFS Access Token? ****************************************************
? What is the name of your application? Demo

However, you can also pass all the information on the command line and by pass the prompts all together.

yo tfs:project DemoProject http://localhost:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection <Personal Access Token>

You do not have to provide all the arguments on the command line.  Any you omit you will be prompted for.

yo tfs:project DemoProject http://localhost:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection
? What is your TFS Access Token?

Below is a table of each generator with the order list of arguments.

Enter “” for any unused arguments.  For example is you are targeting Docker you will not have values for the Azure arguments. Simply put “” in there place. For example this is how you would add a Docker pipeline to an existing project.

yo tfs:pipeline node nodeDemo http://localhost:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection Default docker "" "" "" "" tcp://dockerhost:2376 D:\.docker\dockerhost DockerHUBUser DockerEmail 3000:3000 DockerPassoword PAT

To target Azure App Service you are going to need a Service Principal which you can learn how to create in my previous blog post.  If you want to target Docker you will need a Docker Host.  You can read how to create one here.

Just like yo VSTS, yo TFS is open source. If you would like to contribute you can read the requirements on the GitHub wiki and use this post to build a TFS server to develop on.

I look forward to the pull requests to help add new languages and features to both yo TFS and yo VSTS.