How to run the same action for multiple repositories in Azure Dev Ops using pipeline

Sometimes there is a need for a Dev Ops to run the same activity for a bunch of repositories. You can always have a script to go through folders (repos) but checkout them manually is not a pleasant job. Moreover, it may need some tasks to be done with a pipeline plugin, but pipelines are usually for only 1 repo. Luckily, there is a way to run a pipeline for more that 1 repository and execute exactly the same tasks in parallel.

To do that, there is an interesting feature with Azure Dev Ops YAML pipelines strategy: matrix. As documentation explaines, it generates copies of a job, each with different input. The only thing to worry about is to supply job details to the task. In my case it is a Sonarqube scan.

To deal with that, a special template variable was added that refer to a yaml file that has a list of inputs.

The list example:

variables:
- name: reposToScan
  value: >
    {
       repo1:
       {
          repoURL: "https://dev.azure.com/companyname/projectname/_git/repo1",
          scanDirectory: "source"
        },
        repo2:
       {
          repoURL: "https://dev.azure.com/companyname/projectname/_git/repo2",
          scanDirectory: "code"
        }
    }
   

The pipeline example:

trigger: none

variables:
- template: repositories_list.yaml

jobs:
- job: sonarqubeScan
  strategy: 
    matrix: $[ variables.reposToScan ]
  steps:
  - checkout: self
     clean: true
  - task: SonarQubePrepare@5
    inputs:
      SonarQube: ${{ parameters.sonarqubeService }}
      scannerMode: 'CLI'
      configMode: 'file'
      configFile: 'sonar.properties'
  - task: SonarQubeAnalyze@5
  - task: SonarQubePublish@5

Please take to account that it is just an example to illustrate how the strategy: matrix feature can be used. I can’t guarantee that all the spaces are accurate here as editor is not that convinient as IDE.

The pipeline works well for me and I hope you can use it too where that suits.

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