Chef brings Habitat to VSTS, and Agile Extensions makes editing your backlog a breeze

This month I have two extensions that I am excited about. Chef, who earlier this year released their core set of CI/CD tasks for working with Chef, is adding a new extension that connects VSTS with their app & container automation system, Habitat. Agile Extensions is also making an early splash in the Marketplace with the newest awesome addition to their suite of tool for Agile teams, Backlog Essentials.

Habitat Integration, by Chef

See it in the Marketplace here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=chef-software.vsts-habitat-tasks

This extension adds 7 Build & Release tasks for working with Habitat. From Chef, Habitat “provides a toolset that allows software to be packaged into an immutable configurable archive which can be shared. This archive can be deployed anywhere or exported to other formats such as Docker.”

For more overviews of the Habitat concepts and the feature set, check out the Habitat docs: https://www.habitat.sh/docs/concepts-overview/

Build Tasks

Install Habitat – Installs Habitat on the build agent
Signing origin key – Copies your Habitat origin key to the agent for package signing
Build plan – Build the Habitat package using the project plan.sh

Release Tasks

Package install – Install a Habitat package locally
Package upload – Upload Habitat package to the specified depot
Package export – Export a Habitat package to a different format
Tag an image – Tag a Docker image that has been created by exporting a Habitat package with the previous task.

Backlog Essentials, by Agile Extensions

See it in the Marketplace here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=agile-extensions.backlog-essentials

You may recognize Agile Extensions because they are the author of some of our most popular community extensions in the Marketplace like Personas, Definition of Done, and Product Vision.

Their newest extension, Backlog Essentials, is already receiving fantastic reviews in the Marketplace and it’s easy to see why. It really takes the built in backlog experience to the next level, making the important information glance-able and quickly editable: