Azure DevOps skills

The access foundation for Azure DevOps: a PAT with the right scope, CLI defaults, WIQL, Analytics OData and honest pagination.

when: When reading from or writing to Azure Repos, Boards or Pipelines from the terminal.

PATs and scopes · az devops / az boards · WIQL queries · REST and pagination

Review a pull request against risk criteria —correctness, contract, security— and leave every comment anchored to the right line.

when: When reviewing a specific PR or forming the verdict before approving.

Diff from refs/pull · Risk checklist · Inline threads over REST · Blocker vs suggestion

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

A PR inbox prioritised by who is blocking whom: what is waiting on your vote, what of yours is stalled, and what has been open too long.

when: At the start of the day, or when asking which pull requests are on your plate.

Waiting on your vote · Age and size · Conflicts and builds · Alerts without noise

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

A status report you can actually decide from: progress against what was committed, blockers, incoming scope and what will not make it.

when: Before a daily, a demo or a steering meeting, or when asking how the project is going.

Sprint via WIQL · Projected pace · Blockers and risks · Steering-meeting variant

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

A backlog audit with written thresholds: unestimated, criteria-less, stalled items, untriaged bugs, unclosed epics and zombies.

when: Before a refinement session, or as a periodic backlog review.

Seven threshold alerts · Untriaged bugs · Likely duplicates · Capped alerting

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

PBIs you can estimate and close without argument: verifiable criteria, explicit out-of-scope and complete fields.

when: When creating a PBI, a bug or a feature, or rewriting one that arrives empty.

Acceptance criteria · Bug template · Required fields · When to split

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

Breaking PBIs into half-day to two-day tasks, with external dependencies flagged and the question of whether the sprint actually fits.

when: During sprint planning, or when splitting a large PBI into tasks.

Splitting by criteria · Time-boxed spikes · Capacity vs velocity · Dependencies

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

A PBI turned into a plan anchored to the real code before a line is written: a reasoned approach, changes per layer and an executable checklist.

when: Before implementing anything that spans several layers, or to validate the approach with the team.

Criteria taken as written · Real file paths · Changes per layer · Attaching to the work item

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

From work item ID to a tree ready for review: branch, implementation against the criteria, build and tests, changelog and PR note. Nothing committed.

when: When starting a PBI or Bug by its number and taking it to the point of review.

Branching from the base · Plan or fast mode · Build and test before stopping · Why it never commits

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

A snapshot of the code across several repos at once: activity, vulnerable dependencies, hotspots, divergence and secrets in the history.

when: When assessing the state of a project's code, or deciding where to invest maintenance effort.

Inventory and activity · Vulnerabilities · Hotspots by churn · Five actions

↳ requires azure-devops-cli

YAML pipelines that do not block the team: one artefact for every environment, versioned templates, secrets kept out of the repo.

when: When creating or changing azure-pipelines.yml, or when a build fails only on the agent.

Stages and environments · Templates and caching · Secrets and approvals · Debugging the agent