Azure DevOps release pipeline throws error on Gitversion updatebuildnumber

Question

I am using Gitversion tasks in Azure Release pipeline to find the next tag sequence. I have added update-build-number=false in the execute gitversion task.

Screenshot of the task:

However, the release pipeline fails with the error:

2025-02-06T11:57:18.5806353Z Command: /opt/hostedtoolcache/GitVersion.Tool/6.0.5/dotnet-gitversion --roll-forward Major /home/vsts/work/r1/a/_temp/ /output json /l console /overrideconfig update-build-number=false
2025-02-06T11:57:21.7120908Z ##[error]Unable to process command '##vso[build.updatebuildnumber]0.3.0-alpha.0' successfully. Please reference documentation (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=817296)
2025-02-06T11:57:21.7137378Z ##[error]Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'buildId')

Here is the version details of the task that I am using in the release pipeline

steps:

- task: gittools.gittools.setup-gitversion-task.gitversion/setup@3

  displayName: 'Setup gitversion'

  inputs:

    versionSpec: 6.0.5

    preferLatestVersion: true

How can I prevent the step update build number from running in the release pipeline of Azure

Answer 1

I looked at the source code to understand how the task operates. It looks like you've properly configured the extension as it's passing the /overrideconfig <prop>=<value> to the gitversion.exe on the command-line. It appears that the command-line respects the configuration value you provided.

However, the build-task appears to update the build number after it receives a successful output.

Here's the reverse-engineered bits:

• GitVersionTool has a writeGitVersionToAgent method. As you can see here, there are no conditions around writing the build number.

  writeGitVersionToAgent(output) {
    for (const property of keysOf(output)) {
      const name = this.toCamelCase(property);
      try {
        let value = output[property]?.toString();
        if (value === "0") {
          value = "0";
        }
        this.buildAgent.setOutput(name, value);
        this.buildAgent.setOutput(`GitVersion_${property}`, value);
        this.buildAgent.setOutput(`GitVersion.${property}`, value);
        this.buildAgent.setVariable(name, value);
        this.buildAgent.setVariable(`GitVersion_${property}`, value);
        this.buildAgent.setVariable(`GitVersion.${property}`, value);
      } catch (_error) {
        this.buildAgent.error(`Unable to set output/variable for ${property}`);
      }
    }
    if (output.FullSemVer.endsWith("+0")) {
      output.FullSemVer = output.FullSemVer.slice(0, -2);
    }
    this.buildAgent.updateBuildNumber(output.FullSemVer);
  }

• The runner has an execute() method that is called when you run the execute build-task. The execute function calls processGitVersionOutput which in turn calls the writeGitVersionToAgent mentioned above.

  async execute() {
    return this.safeExecute(async () => {
      const result = await this.tool.executeJson();
      this.buildAgent.debug("Parsing GitVersion output");
      return this.processGitVersionOutput(result);
    }, "GitVersion executed successfully");
  }

  processGitVersionOutput(result) {
    const stdout = result.stdout;
    if (stdout.lastIndexOf("{") === -1 || stdout.lastIndexOf("}") === -1) {
      this.buildAgent.debug("GitVersion output is not valid JSON");
      this.buildAgent.setFailed("GitVersion output is not valid JSON", true);
      return {
        code: -1,
        error: new Error("GitVersion output is not valid JSON")
      };
    } else {
      const jsonOutput = stdout.substring(stdout.lastIndexOf("{"), stdout.lastIndexOf("}") + 1);
      const gitVersionOutput = JSON.parse(jsonOutput);
      this.tool.writeGitVersionToAgent(gitVersionOutput);
      this.buildAgent.setSucceeded("GitVersion executed successfully", true);
      return result;
    }
  }

Release pipelines don't have a build number you can modify. Not sure if running this task in a Release pipeline is a scenario that the GitTools team will support, but you could log a bug here.