TFS 2013 Default Build Template Does Not Get Missing Source Items

3
votes

The default build template (TfvcTemplate.12.xaml) will not get any missing items during a normal build. I can force it to delete and pull down all changes by setting the build definition property "Clean Workspace" to true. However, I want to perform incremental builds.

Setting the "Clean Workspace" property to false will fail on build agents that have not pulled down the source before or whose files have been changed by some outside process.

Is there a setting that I am missing to enable this or do I need to change the build template? If I need to change the template, what activities must I add?

1
visual-studiotfstfsbuild
This should not be the case. Can you give details of the version of TFS 2013, the 'outside process', and any error massages encountered. – MrHinsh - Martin Hinshelwood
I noticed that when new agents were added to my build process, it failed to build because the source was never downloaded unless the clean workspace option was true. There is no outside process to say, but I noticed that files I deleted manually were never re-populated during a build. I am using TFS 2013 update 3. The errors are usually ones around missing files because they were never downloaded. – Matt Slagle
If you delete files manually you will break the build and will need to switch to Clean workspace to repopulate it. Solution: Stop deleting files... – MrHinsh - Martin Hinshelwood
Yes, but how do I fix this for new agents? How am I supposed to know that the build is going to select an agent that already has source downloaded? – Matt Slagle
This is automatic functionality for new agents. There should be no issues. You are going to need to provide error ls and logs... – MrHinsh - Martin Hinshelwood

1 Answers

4
votes

You need to stop deleting files manually from the build servers.

When you delete a file manually from the build server the server workspace gets out of sync with the server and needs to be repopulated. If you have Clean Workspaces set to false you are disabling this feature.

Do not delete files from the build servers directly.