{"id":70936,"date":"2025-04-18T06:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T14:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/?p=70936"},"modified":"2025-04-18T06:21:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T14:21:48","slug":"azure-boards-github-recent-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/azure-boards-github-recent-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure Boards + GitHub: Recent Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past several months, we\u2019ve delivered a <a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/azure\/devops\/release-notes\/features-timeline#improved-boards--github-integration\">series of improvements<\/a> to the Azure Boards + GitHub integration. Whether you&#8217;re tracking code, managing pull requests, or connecting pipelines, these updates aim to simplify and strengthen the link between your work items and your GitHub activity.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a recap of everything we\u2019ve released (or are just about to release):<\/p>\n<h2>\ud83d\udd17 Smarter Link Management for Branches, PRs, and Commits<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019ve made it easier than ever to keep your work items automatically updated as your development progresses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Merge commit linking:<\/strong> When a pull request is completed, its merge commit is now automatically linked to the associated work item.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>PR auto-linking:<\/strong> If a branch is linked to a work item, any pull requests created from that branch are now automatically linked\u2014no need to manually use AB#.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Branch cleanup:<\/strong> Once a pull request is merged and the branch is deleted, the branch link is automatically removed from the work item.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These changes reduce the need for manual linking and help keep your work items clean and current.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfd\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/github-boards-integration-improvements-1.mp4\">Click here to see video<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>\ud83d\ude80 Build Status from GitHub Repos (YAML Pipelines)<\/h2>\n<p>Azure Boards now displays the Integrated in build link when your repository is hosted in GitHub and you&#8217;re using an Azure YAML pipeline.<\/p>\n<p>To enable this, just turn on the new option in your YAML pipeline settings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-1.png\" alt=\"Image yaml 1\" width=\"853\" height=\"618\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70945\" srcset=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-1.png 853w, https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-1-300x217.png 300w, https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-1-768x556.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Once enabled, completed builds will automatically appear on the associated work items, giving you improved traceability from code to deployment.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-2.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-2.png\" alt=\"Image yaml 2\" width=\"1017\" height=\"731\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70944\" srcset=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-2.png 1017w, https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-2-300x216.png 300w, https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/yaml-2-768x552.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1017px) 100vw, 1017px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>\u2b06\ufe0f Increased GitHub Repository Limit<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019ve doubled the number of GitHub repositories you can connect to a single Azure DevOps project, from 500 to 1,000. This upgrade supports better scalability for organizations managing many repos across teams.<\/p>\n<h2>\ud83e\udd16 State Transition Support<\/h2>\n<p>We have expanded our support for linking GitHub pull requests to Azure Boards work items. Previously, only the <code>Fixes AB#{ID}<\/code> keyword was supported. With this update, you can now use <code>{State or Category} AB#{ID}<\/code> to automatically transition work items to the desired state on merge.<\/p>\n<p>If the GitHub pull request description includes a state name (e.g., <code>Validate AB#1234<\/code>), the linked work item&#8217;s state will be updated accordingly. If the state name isn\u2019t recognized, we\u2019ll check if it matches a state category (like <code>Resolved<\/code>). If it does, the work item will be transitioned to the first available state within that category.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/validate-work-item.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/validate-work-item.png\" alt=\"Image validate work item\" width=\"983\" height=\"840\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70946\" srcset=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/validate-work-item.png 983w, https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/validate-work-item-300x256.png 300w, https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/validate-work-item-768x656.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 983px) 100vw, 983px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If no matching state or category is found, the keyword is ignored and the state on the work item will not be updated.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the <code>Fixes AB#{ID}<\/code> keyword continues to work as expected, defaulting to the <code>Closed<\/code> state value.<\/p>\n<h2>\ud83c\udf1f Pull Request Mentions (coming soon)<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019re also adding support for <code>!<\/code> mentions, allowing you to reference GitHub pull requests directly in comments and large text fields on work items. This will make collaboration around pull requests smoother and more visible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/gh-pr-mentions-1.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/gh-pr-mentions-1.gif\" alt=\"Image gh pr mentions 1\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70948\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We expect this feature to be available to all organizations by early May. Keep an eye on the <a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/azure\/devops\/release-notes\/features-timeline-released\">official release notes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re excited to bring these improvements to our GitHub + Boards integration and make the experience more seamless for teams working across both platforms. Let us know what you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past several months, we\u2019ve delivered a series of improvements to the Azure Boards + GitHub integration. Whether you&#8217;re tracking code, managing pull requests, or connecting pipelines, these updates aim to simplify and strengthen the link between your work items and your GitHub activity. Here\u2019s a recap of everything we\u2019ve released (or are just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":921,"featured_media":69818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[227,224,226,229,1,225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agile","category-azure","category-ci","category-community","category-devops","category-git"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>Over the past several months, we\u2019ve delivered a series of improvements to the Azure Boards + GitHub integration. Whether you&#8217;re tracking code, managing pull requests, or connecting pipelines, these updates aim to simplify and strengthen the link between your work items and your GitHub activity. Here\u2019s a recap of everything we\u2019ve released (or are just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}