What is this CI/CD thing? Let’s do a tutorial!

Well, according to Wikipedia, CI/CD is:

In software engineering, CI/CD or CICD generally refers to the combined practices of continuous integration and either continuous delivery or continuous deployment. CI/CD bridges the gaps between development and operation activities and teams by enforcing automation in building, testing and deployment of applications.

So, of course I get what that is, but frankly, I am not a developer.  If you came here for guidance from a developer, you really got lost.

I do write a decent amount of PowerShell scripts, but nothing on the order of actual development.  I spend a good deal of time trying to understand the weirdness that is the Dev mind, but never enough to get proficient.  In my quest to improve on this blog (and eventually a couple of other sites I have) I am going to work through the tutorial here:  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops-project/azure-devops-project-github

First up, create the CI/CD pipeline.  You do this by signing into Azure, and adding the DevOps Starter.  As you create it, it gives you options to load a new web app with a variety of languages.  For our purposes, we are going to ‘Bring your own code’.

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For this, I created a new Repo in DevOps.  When you are choosing your repository, you can select Git, BitBucket or Other Git.  I selected “Other Git, and entered the repository URL.  It is mine, not yours so it is private, and I need to enter credentials:
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To get the URL and credentials, in Azure DevOps, go to Clone your repository, and copy the hyperlink and click on the ‘Generate Git Credentials’ button.  Copy all of that over to the Code repository screen.

I am going to chose a non-Dockerized ASP .NET Core Framework, and a Windows Web App.
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For the create step, you can name everything.  If you click on additional settings, you can change the pricing tier.

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Once you do that, it will deploy.  This creates a DevOps Project, an Azure Resource Group for the DevOps Starter and applicable resources in the Resource Group you gave it for the deployed solution. 

I actually went through this a few different times to fully understand what I was doing.  I don’t work in a development role, but I do enjoy building stuff.  It can be a bit much to understand/remember/follow if it isn’t something you either need or do often.  Don’t forget to remove any resources you create for this that you aren’t planning on continuing to use.  If you are new to Azure, you can get some free credits to help you learn.  It can get expensive if you aren’t paying attention to what you are doing.

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