Creating a simple task to clean folders

To get comfortable with creating extensions, in this recipe, we will create a simple pipeline extension. This extension will contain a single task to take a minmatch search pattern (https://aka.ms/minimatchexamples) and delete files and/or folders in a specified directory. The task can be used in the build or release pipeline to clean build artifacts, and eventually you will publish the cleaned directory.

Getting ready

We are going to develop this extension using TypeScript, which automatically gets transpiled into JavaScript. Writing in JavaScript ensures that this extension is automatically cross-platform and hence a task, or tasks, can run on Windows, Mac, or Linux-based agents...