Ideally, your builds should be taking place on a configured build server – which pulls the latest code (from a specified branch) and then tries to compile it. In a perfect world, you would run a set of automated unit tests before passing the build.

What if you do not have a separate TFS build server? What if you still want to try and do some sort of automated build – but do not have a dedicated TFS server to utilize?

Use your desktop as the build server

When you get down to the details, the only thing the TFS server would have done for you is:

  1. Get the latest source code – using TF.exe
  2. Build it using msbuild.exe–  with possibly some optional parameters passed in.

You can accomplish both these easily on your own desktop.

I noticed that someone had already written a very descriptive post on this topic – so I am just going to point to their post .

Anuj holds professional certifications in Google Cloud, AWS as well as certifications in Docker and App Performance Tools such as New Relic. He specializes in Cloud Security, Data Encryption and Container Technologies.

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Anuj Varma – who has written posts on Anuj Varma, Hands-On Technology Architect, Clean Air Activist.

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