TFS Build - Powershell or custom activity?

I understand I can write my own custom activity (in C#) to execute custom logic during the build process. My understanding is that Powershell can also be used, but I am not sure where it fits in. I do understand Powershell is 开发者_开发知识库used for executing command line commands but how and where would I use it to customize the build process?

Thanks

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The decision whether to use Powershell or a Custom activity is for me based on who is responsible. If you have an activity that is created by the build master (for TFS) and therefor reusable for all the teams in the organization, I create a custom activity.

If the project team is responsible (for example a deployment script), the I use the powershell. I create an argument where the team can enter the path of the powershell script that needs to execute to deploy. The project team can optionally choose to enter a value in that argument. The project team can also maintain their powershell deployment script themselves without the help of the build master.

So in short:

• A reusable activity: Custom activity
• Activity for the team only: Powershell

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For me, powershell is the way to go. Here are my reasons why:

1. Script Independence:

You get script independence using this approach. Example: I have a number of scripts that run after the build (i.e. the compile) process has completed:

• Instantiate Database
• Deploy Database Code
• Deploy Web Applications
• Verify Deployment
• Run Acceptance Tests

All of the above can be launched, debugged and tested independently without the need to queue a new build.

1. Powershell is easy to work with:

Custom assemblies tend to add a lot of complexity and flakiness to the solution. Example: Upgrading from TFS 2010 to TFS 2012 was very painful, because all of the Build Templates broke. We had to recompile all of our custom assemblies, and only one dev on the team knew how TFS Build was set up to run our custom activities. I have recently removed all custom assemblies from our build templates, and am using Powershell exclusively.

I have customised my process templates to call a user-defined powershell script after the TFS Build has completed. I do this by using a paths argument in the build definition. This argument is simply an array of strings pointing to the scripts. I agree with Ewald, above, that TFS does not pass the build arguments to scripts. To solve this, in my workflow template I parse each script in the string array, and replace well-known tokens with the build arguments - e.g. @(BuildNumber), @(SourcesDirectory) etc. I find this to be a very easy and solid solution.