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KrisJones's avatar
KrisJones
Copper Contributor
Aug 07, 2025

Gated Build does not perform merge

Hi,

I have:

  • Cloud hosted Azure DevOps agent
  • master branch and a PR branch
  • I have a gated build pipeline that points to the master branch
  • I have setup Build Validation and pointed it to my gated build

The gated pipeline keeps failing. When I look at the error logs, it does not appear to be merging my PR branch the master branch and running the gated build on that. From the logs, I can see it's only using the master branch. 

What am I missing?

 

 

 

2 Replies

  • Kidd_Ip's avatar
    Kidd_Ip
    MVP
    Aug 08, 2025

    Would suggest:

     

    1. Ensure Build Validation Is Set Up on the Target Branch
    • Go to Repos > Branches > master > Branch Policies
    • Under Build Validation, add your pipeline and make sure:
      • Trigger on pull request is enabled
      • Policy requirement is set to “Required”
      • Build expires after is reasonable (e.g., 24 hours)

    This ensures the build runs on the merged PR commit, not just the master.

    1. Check Your YAML Trigger Settings

    In your pipeline YAML, make sure you have:

    trigger:
  branches:
    exclude:
      - "*"

pr:
  branches:
    include:
      - master

    This disables CI builds and enables PR builds only when merging into master.

    1. Use System.PullRequest.SourceBranch and System.PullRequest.TargetBranch

    These variables help you confirm the build is running in the PR context. You can log them in your pipeline to verify:

    steps:
- script: |
    echo "Source: $(System.PullRequest.SourceBranch)"
    echo "Target: $(System.PullRequest.TargetBranch)"

     

    1. Avoid Classic Pipelines for PR Validation

    If you're using classic pipelines, they may not handle PR merge commits properly. YAML pipelines are more reliable for gated builds.

    • KrisJones's avatar
      KrisJones
      Copper Contributor
      Aug 08, 2025

      Thanks for your suggestion. 

      The problem turned out to be that I had the trigger code below in the yaml file that belong to validation pipeline which only cause the build to run on the master branch. When removed it, it properly merged the 2 branch and ran the build on that. 

      In the end I created 2 yml files - one for the build validation pipeline without this code and one for my master branch build pipline with this trigger

       

            trigger:

              branches:

                include:

                  - master

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