Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server

Guidelines: Team Build
Index
Strategy
• Use a scheduled build to produce regular builds.
• Use a Continuous Integration (CI) build to get rapid feedback on check-ins.
• Use a rolling build if CI builds are adversely impacting build server performance.
• Use branching to reduce build breaks.
• Use check-in policies to improve check-in quality.
• Use build notification alerts to learn when the build has completed.
Branching
• Use new Team Build Types when creating a partial branch.
• Modify the paths to solutions in the TFSBuild.proj files, when creating a complete
branch.
Check-in Policies
• Use check-in policies to improve check-in quality.
• Use check-in policies to associate work items with the build.
Continuous Integration Builds
• Use a CI build to get rapid feedback on check-ins.
• Use a rolling build if CI builds are adversely impacting build server performance.
• Ensure that the frequency of your rolling builds is less often than the build times.
Customization
• Use a custom post-build step to build an installer project.
• Use MS Build Toolkit Extras to build Microsoft .NET 1.1 applications.
• Use TFSBuild.proj to modify your build.
• Use a custom pre-build step to build a project that has dependencies to another team
project.
Deployment
• On larger teams, install the build services on a separate server.
Performance
• Use incremental builds to improve performance.
• Avoid synchronizing redundant folders in your build.
• Use workspaces to avoid checking out unwanted files and projects when doing a
Team Build.
• Consider using multiple build machines to improve performance.