TFS - Fail a build when the warning count increases

I am a big fan of "measuring", because what you don't measure you can't improve.
Measuring over time allows us to establish a trend and the trend is often more interesting that the hard numbers.

Trends that might be interesting are:

1. Code Coverage: I don't care about 55.3%, 65.7% or even 85% Code Coverage.
   I am more interested in the trend over time: How did Code Coverage change since last week? Since last month?
   If it changes too much, maybe we have problem…
   BTW: If you have > 95% Code Coverage, send me an email… Keen to see your code and your tests!
   
2. Max Request/second in stress test: What's the maximum number of requests that we can handle per second in our web application? Did it increase or decrease over time?
   

Jason Stangroome blogged about a quick XAML extension of the default build template, that fails a build when the warning count increases.
This is great! Make sure to grab it and put it into your build.
And say Thanks to @jstangroome

I just added an output message to show me the current values (see the yellow). Since it was not so easy to do, I include it here.

<!-- Insert this Sequence as one of the last children of the Sequence with DisplayName="Compile and Test" -->
<Sequence DisplayName="Fail Build if Warnings increase">
  <Sequence.Variables>
    <Variable x:TypeArguments="mtbc:IBuildDetail" Name="LastBuildDetail" />
    <Variable x:TypeArguments="x:Int32" Name="LastWarningCount" />
    <Variable x:TypeArguments="x:Int32" Name="WarningCount" />
  </Sequence.Variables>
  <Assign x:TypeArguments="mtbc:IBuildDetail" To="[LastBuildDetail]" Value="[BuildDetail.BuildServer.GetBuild(BuildDetail.BuildDefinition.LastBuildUri)]"  />
  <Assign x:TypeArguments="x:Int32" To="[LastWarningCount]" Value="[Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.InformationNodeConverters.GetBuildWarnings(LastBuildDetail).Count]"  />
  <Assign x:TypeArguments="x:Int32" To="[WarningCount]" Value="[Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.InformationNodeConverters.GetBuildWarnings(BuildDetail).Count]"  />

  <mtbwa:WriteBuildMessage Importance="[Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.BuildMessageImportance.High]" Message="[String.Format(&quot;LastWarningCount: {0}.  WarningCount: {1} &quot;, LastWarningCount, WarningCount)]" />

  <If Condition="[WarningCount &gt; LastWarningCount]">
    <If.Then>
      <Sequence>
        <mtbwa:WriteBuildError Message="This build has more warnings than the last build. Focus on fixing more build warnings than are introduced." />
        <!-- The follow SetBuildProperties line will mark the build as Failed instead of just Partially Successful if the warning count has increased. -->
        <mtbwa:SetBuildProperties PropertiesToSet="Status" Status="Failed" />
      </Sequence>
    </If.Then>
  </If>
</Sequence>

Figure: Fail build, when Warning count increased since last build

 

Figure: Build failed cause too many warning

 

Figure: "View Log" shows you the details: Warnings increased from 0 to 20

 

Thanks Jason!!

Now I am off to write some XAML for my code coverage numbers, and max req/sec…
CU later