Skipping stage based on commit message

Question

I am trying to set Azure DevOps to skip a stage on a multi-stage pipeline if a message does not start with a given text.

From the examples documentation, I think it is just

  - stage: t1
    condition: not(startsWith(variables['Build.SourceVersionMessage'], '[maven-release-plugin]'))
    jobs:
      - job: ReleasePrepare
        displayName: Prepare release
        pool:
          vmImage: 'ubuntu-16.04'
        steps:
          - script: |
              env | sort

However, this gets executed regardless. Here's an example of where I expect the t1 task to not be run based on the commit message https://dev.azure.com/trajano/experiments/_build/results?buildId=110&view=results

The output of env shows that the message was passed in correctly

Just in case it is a bug I reported it here as well https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/697290/startswith-buildsourceversionmessage-variable-not.html

Answer 1

It appears that Build.SourceVersionMessage at the time of this post is only resolvable on the steps.

Here's a working example that stores the value in a variable in one step and use it in the next job (which can be a deployment)

trigger:
  batch: true
  branches:
    include:
      - master

stages:
  - stage: ci
    displayName: Continuous Integration
    jobs:
      - job: Build
        pool:
          vmImage: 'ubuntu-16.04'
        steps:
          - script: |
              env | sort
              echo "$(Build.SourceVersionMessage)"
  - stage: t1
    displayName: Release
    condition: eq(variables['Build.SourceBranch'],'refs/heads/master')
    jobs:
      - job: GetCommitMessage
        displayName: Get commit message
        steps:
          - bash: |
              echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=commitMessage;isOutput=true]$(Build.SourceVersionMessage)"
              echo "Message is '$(Build.SourceVersionMessage)''"
            name: SetVarStep
            displayName: Store commit message in variable
      - job: ReleasePrepare
        displayName: Prepare release
        dependsOn: GetCommitMessage
        pool:
          vmImage: 'ubuntu-16.04'
        condition: not(startsWith(dependencies.GetCommitMessage.outputs['SetVarStep.commitMessage'], '[maven-release-plugin]'))
        steps:
          - script: |
              echo this would be a candidate for release
              env | sort
            displayName: Don't do it if maven release
      - job: NotReleasePrepare
        displayName: Don't Prepare Release
        dependsOn: GetCommitMessage
        pool:
          vmImage: 'ubuntu-16.04'
        condition: startsWith(dependencies.GetCommitMessage.outputs['SetVarStep.commitMessage'], '[maven-release-plugin]')
        steps:
          - script: |
              echo this not be a candidate for release because it was created by the plugin
              env | sort
            condition: startsWith(variables.commitMessage, '[maven-release-plugin]')
            displayName: Do it if maven release

The build can be found in https://dev.azure.com/trajano/experiments/_build/results?buildId=133&view=logs&s=6fc7e65a-555d-5fab-c78f-9502ae9436c4&j=b5187b8c-216e-5267-fcdb-c2c33d846e05