Creating and using release templates

As previously discussed, once the CI is complete, published build artifacts should ideally be transferred into the release pipeline, starting the CD phase. Azure DevOps release templates and infrastructure provide a complete release management solution that, without the need for any additional platform such as Jenkins, Octopus, or TeamCity, can handle the CI/CD pipeline.

In this section, we will take a look at the basic release template elements and work out details for both Xamarin and Azure web application releases within separate release templates.

Azure DevOps releases

A release definition is made up of two main components: artifacts and stages. Using triggers and gates, the deployment of artifacts to target stages is organized and managed.

Release artifacts

Release artifacts are the elements that provide the components for the release tasks. These artifacts can vary...