Introducing the new CLI for VSTS

Will Smythe

Today we are announcing a new cross-platform command line interface for Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and Team Foundation Server (TFS). This new CLI, currently in preview, lets you manage and work with pull requests, work items, builds, and more. Many more commands and capabilities will be added over time, hopefully with help from the community!

If you loving using the command line, you will love VSTS CLI. VSTS CLI is great for interactive use or for scripting. As a developer you can use it for your everyday workflows, like creating pull requests, opening bugs, and more. Bash, PowerShell, etc users can easily incorporate the VSTS CLI in their scripts.

Check back for more posts on available commands, how to use the VSTS CLI in scripts, and more.

Highlights

Here are a few of the highlights:

  • Supports VSTS and TFS (2017 Update 2 and later)
  • Runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS. See the install steps. It is also available as a Docker image, which lets you run VSTS CLI almost anywhere. See the vsts-cli Docker repo.
  • Integrates with the Git CLI. Once you enable Git alias support via the vsts configure command, you can create a VSTS pull request (and perform other Git related operations) by typing: “git pr create”. If the current directory is a local Git repository connected to VSTS (or TFS), no other arguments are required. Learn more about using VSTS CLI with Git.
  • Natural for Azure CLI users. If you already use the new Azure CLI, you will feel right at home with the VSTS CLI. Both are built on the same platform and are designed to feel natural for users that love command line.
  • Open source on GitHub. We invite you to open issues and suggest new commands. Visit the vsts-cli repository.

How to get started

To get started, see the VSTS CLI documentation on docs.microsoft.com. If you run into any problems, feel free to reply on this post or open an issue.

Will Smythe Program Manager, VSTS

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