TFS 2015 - Delete Build Artifacts

tfsbuild tfs-2015
Valter picture Valter · Jun 20, 2016 · Viewed 8.3k times · Source

How to step up TFS 2015 Update 2 to delete artifacts when build is deleted?

Is this possible?

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EDIT: Add retention screen shot

I am using the default retention policy but it is NOT deleting artifacts from the drive.

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EDIT: Add Copy and Publish Build Artifacts

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EDIT: Add Working Folder

I added a powershell to display all environment variables and it said my workingFolder = E:TfsBuilds\Agent1_WorkPlace\5\s

Do you a powershell to set workingFolder to default?

Here is the file structure i have:

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Answer

PatrickLu-MSFT picture PatrickLu-MSFT · Jun 21, 2016

If you specify build retention policies, retention policies will delete the items below:

  • The build record
  • Logs
  • Published artifacts
  • Automated test results
  • Published artifacts
  • Published symbols

More details you can refer a similar question in SO: Should artifacts associated with a build record be deleted when the build record is deleted?

Moreover, if you manually delete the build, everything of the build will be deleted.

Update

For now, server drops are deleted when a build is deleted but drops to UNC shares are not. It's also a known issue: Build.Preview - Drop Folder not deleted when build is deleted

If so, you may have to delete them manually.

Update2

I was wondering did you missed up the working folder with the drop folder. The default work folder location is a _work folder directly under the agent installation directory. The files in this folder will always keep or deleted until next build triggered. You can find the directory in your build log to double check this. More details please refer the definition from MSDN.

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Update3

Each agent will have their own work folder. Such as XXX\Agent1, XXX\Agent2,...XXX\Agent6. I think the issue is that you are confusing the file structure.

With your file structure, the files which deployed to the server is copying to the folder called XXX\builds. However, these files are not the published Artifacts. There are something like temporary files. If you want to auto delete the files under the builds, you can add a Delete files task. at the last step. Even if these files are deleted during the build. You can still download the artifacts from server after build finished. enter image description here

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