List of Commits per Pull Request are missing

[striky1]

Hi,

I'm using Tasks XplatGenerateReleaseNotes@3 and WikiUpdaterTask@1 on Release pipeline.

Maybe I misunderstood something but I'm not getting information that I would expecting.

Let's imagine that we have structure of repository:

Master branch
Develop branch (created from Master)

When we are working on some features/bugfixes everything is going into Develop branch except situation when creating new stuff is already "closed". In that time we are creating new Release branch from Develop.

Developers can continue with their work, Release branch is "locked" and under testing and if there are some issues, HotFixes are comming to Release/Develop branches in separated PRs.

In the end, Release branch is merged into Master via single PR with all commits which we did from last time when Develop branch was merged into Master.

What I was expecting when I did Release Pipeline with GenerateReleaseNote plugin? That I'll have same list of commits as it is shown on Azure in PR details under "Commits" TAB. (Left Sidebar Menu -> Pull Request -> Completed -> {{somePR}} -> Commits)
Note: I did same with regular pipeline and for both situation I'm using printing debug values into terminal, to check what I can use to generate Release Notes into Wiki.

What I got? Single commit with small information about what was done like: id, message, type, author, timestamp, location.. and so on.

My question is, it's possible to get informations about all commits which we are merging as new Release into Master via single PR? It's not purporse of this plugin or I'm doing something wrong?

Thank you so much.

Best regards, striky..

[rfennell]

The logic to find pull request is as follows

1. Get a list of all the PRs in the repo (or project based on the searchCrossProjectForPRs parameter
2. Select the ones that are related to the build based on being either
   • the one that matches the one referenced in the build trigger
   • or has a matching lastMergeCommit.commitId that mayches the commit.id of one of the associate commits

The extracted list is then returned.

So if you don't have a matching last merge commit the PR will not be listed.

If you run the build with the system.debug=true variable you will see the selection logic.

It might be the current logic is not correct for your usage. But check the logs to confirm that

[striky1]

I did PR with ID: 6176 which contains 4 commits.

I checked log from Release Build and there is:

2020-10-27T12:02:37.9097279Z - PR 6176 matches the commit f9cdb2aef
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9097838Z - PR 4005 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9098388Z - PR 3933 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9106778Z - PR 2096 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9107381Z - PR 2042 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9110077Z - PR 1344 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9111209Z - PR 1124 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9111718Z - PR 1106 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9113357Z - PR 630 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9113821Z - PR 626 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9115145Z - PR 86 does not have a lastMergeCommit
2020-10-27T12:02:37.9115726Z - PR 68 does not have a lastMergeCommit

Why it is not searching for 6175, 6173, 6172 and 6171 which are as part of 6176 via Commits, I rlly don't know 🤷🏻‍♂️

I'm running pipelines with unchecked searchCrossProjectForPRs 'cause from my understanding, it's enough to have it unchecked if I want searching for PR in that exact repository on which was Pipeline run or should I run it with that?

Thank you

[rfennell]

My assumption is that only the final merge commit (that ends the PR) is the only one detected as it is the only one associated with the build. The others commits are associated with the PR, but not the build, and provide no mechanism to get to them at present

So the issue is I am limited by what the MS REST API has returned as WI & CS associated with the build, it does not chain down into PRs details unless I write extra code.

I could look at enhancing the PR object so that all the associated Commits are listed. Note that I only recently enriched the PR object array to include the associated work items.

So my thought is

• When the PR list has been filter enrich each PR so that each object includes
  • What is returned by the REST API for PR details
  • The associated WI - it does this now
  • Add the associated commits

[striky1]

Alright, I understand. If I can help you somehow, let me know but fyi I'm "just" FrontEnd developer, I don't have big knowledge about API of Azure and so on, tbh :)

[rfennell]

Ok, ow I understand and can make a code change. I will try to get it out ASAP

[rfennell]

This has been shipped as 3.27.3.

There is now a extra property on each PR that details the commits in the PR source branch. Note the commits listed here might not be associated directly with the build.

A sample of the usage is

## Associated Pull Requests ({{pullRequests.length}})
{{#forEach pullRequests}}
* **[{{this.pullRequestId}}]({{replace (replace this.url "_apis/git/repositories" "_git") "pullRequests" "pullRequest"}})** {{this.title}}
* Associated Work Items
{{#forEach this.associatedWorkitems}}
   {{#with (lookup_a_work_item ../../relatedWorkItems this.url)}}
    - [{{this.id}}]({{replace this.url "_apis/wit/workItems" "_workitems/edit"}}) - {{lookup this.fields 'System.Title'}} 
   {{/with}}
{{/forEach}}
* Associated Commits (this includes commits on the PR source branch not associated directly with the build)
{{#forEach this.associatedCommits}}
    - [{{this.commitId}}]({{this.remoteUrl}}) -  {{this.comment}}
{{/forEach}}
{{/forEach}}

[striky1]

@rfennell nice, thank you. It works!

I checked changes on your PR and I thought that this plugin is written in .NET or something similar 🤷🏻‍♂️

So, I checked Azure DevOps Node API and possible functions. It seems that we are in the end of what is possible to get.

What is the problem?

Associated Commits are fine, it's shame that they didn't returning Work Items (based on GitInterfaces.GitCommit interface) who know why not, but main problem is that this interface don't contains simple "title" of commit/PR but description as comment property which including generated text by Azure (title, description and related work items), example:

Merged PR 6175: [Bug] - Example Title\n\nCommit Message Example\n\n+ added not-in-develop.ts File\n\nRelated work items: #123

My idea was that I want to divide list of commits by Title of PR which that commit created.

1. Let's say that PR have title as above: [Bug] - Example Title.
2. Based on prefix I want to use {{#if contains..}} to filter it.
3. It will works 'cause contains will do his job but I need to create, probably, custom handlerbars function to get Title of commit from comment based on \n\n characters what is highway to hell 'cause what if Azure decide to change this format to something else?

So, I checked what we are able to ask for based on properties in GitInterfaces.GitCommit interface and seems that we are not able to find PR related to that commit what is strange 'cause if you open link from remoteUrlproperty, in Details Tab u can see to which PR is commit related.

Do you see any other possible way or am I right and it is as it is? :)

Thank you

[rfennell]

On your first point, all Azure DevOps pipeline tasks are written in PowerShell (original PowerShell not Core) or Node. I have written in both, but over time have tended to favour Node to give cross platform support. I only use PowerShell now for tasks that are Windows specific.

As to formatting the output, you can address problems like the comment being multiline by using the Handlebars Helpers that are loaded by the tasks, or write your own as detailed in the WIKI. These allow you to create the release notes you need as I cannot support all the format people will request

So for example, if you did not want the full Git commit SHA, just the more common first 7 characters, and limit the comment to the first line you could swap from

{{#forEach this.associatedCommits}}
    - [{{this.commitId}}]({{this.remoteUrl}}) -  {{this.comment}}
{{/forEach}}

to

{{#forEach this.associatedCommits}}
    - [{{truncate this.commitId 7}}]({{this.remoteUrl}}) -  {{(split this.comment '/n')[0]}}
{{/forEach}}

[striky1]

@rfennell sure, sure, I know that this is my specific behaviour. It's not problem at all to make custom format.

I was asking about if it's possible to get information about Pull Request which is connected with that specific commit to not creating crazy handlebars function for extracting Title of Commit from Commit Description which is generated by Azure in some format (and this format can be changed in the future).

Sorry if I confused you.