How to execute code on TFS server after a user checks in code

Question

I\'m building an integration system that needs to execute some code on a Team Foundation Server (2010+) server when a user checks in some changes. I can diagrammatically acc

Answer 1

There are different ways you can approach this:

1. Team Build. By using a TFS Build Server you can create a Continuous Integration build or a Gated Checkin build. In the build workflow you can then respond to whatever changes you've detected. You can use the TFS Client Object Model to grab the Changeset object. That contains all the data you'll need. The ALM Rangers have written an extensive guide explaining how to extend and customize the build process to suit your needs.

2. Checkin Policy. By creating a custom checkin policy you can run code pre-checkin on the client (inside Visual Studio). This policy could serve as a sample on how to interact with the pending changes.

3. ISubscriber TFS Application Tier plugin. Already mentioned by @ppejovic. The Application Tier plugin is installed on the TFS server and will run in process. Since it's hosted in process, you can do quite a bit. Samples that act on Work items and/or Source Control are the Merge Work Items handler, the TFS Aggregator. You can also fall back to the Client Object Model if needed, as described here.

4. The SOAP API. This is the precursor to the ISubscriber interface. You can still use it, but you'll have more power and efficiency from the ISubscriber solution.

5. The Client Object Model. You can always create a service or a scheduled job on a system that periodically connects to TFS to request the history since the last time it checked. By simply storing querying everything newer than the highest changeset number you've seen so far you can get all the information you need without having to extend TFS itself. You'll be looking for the VersionControlServer class. The QueryHistory method is the one you'll need to fetch the changesets.

There's a nice Pluralsight course that takes you through some of these scenario's.

As with most of these items, documentation is scarce and tools like Red-Gate Reflector .NET or Jetbrains dotPeek are invaluable.