Building a previous release using the original Build Pipeline at the time of release

Question

We are following gitflow model in our project using Azure DevOps Services. I have a classic editor based pipeline which builds the Dev and Release/R1.0 branch.

I am going to setup a classic editor based pipeline which will build my Release R.10 from the master branch after merging Release/R1.0 branch at the end of the release. Let us say this classic editor based build pipeline is MyProduct-R1.0

After the release, I will be tagging the master branch and deleting the Release/R1.0 branch as per GitFlow model. However, I will be retaining the build pipeline MyProduct-R1.0

My question is this: Suppose after the Release R1.0 once master branch has moved ahead and I want to do a build of master branch at R1.0 tag, how do I do using the MyProduct-R1.0 pipeline which was used to originally build the R1.0 release?

I know this is possibly a confusing question, but I have tried my best to give it a shot.

Thanks,

Update 2: I think my question is more about the branch specification for my MyProduct-R1.0 release pipeline. I can't give master since master will evolve after the Release R1.0. I can't give Release/R1.0 since this branch will be deleted after the Release as per gitflow model. So what branch specifications should I provide for my pipeline?

Answer 1

Use YAML builds. There's no mechanism for this with JSON ("classic editor") builds, since JSON builds are versioned separately from source code.

Answer 2

Like Daniel said YAML is the best path. Handles this gracefully as the Build definition lives with the branch.

In the past for GUI builds, when I dealt with build definition drift, instead of creating new build definitions, I would use conditional steps tied to the branch that was being built, but it can be painful to go back and update\maintain.

Answer 3

I think here is what will achieve what I am after. Once I do my release and tag it as R1.0, then I can always use my pipeline at a later date to build the same source code in the master branch for R1.0 using either it's tag or the commit it.

Note that this shows Dev is my default branch for this pipeline as it is not yet the Release pipeline which I depict below. I am yet to create it.

Am I missing something?