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Microsoft Windows

Use a CI pipeline to build and test a Microsoft Windows application.

You can build and test a Microsoft Windows application using a Windows platform on Harness Cloud or a self-managed Kubernetes cluster build infrastructure.

This guide assumes you've created a Harness CI pipeline.

Specify architecture

stages:
  - stage:
      name: build
      identifier: build
      type: CI
      spec:
        cloneCodebase: true
        platform:
          os: Windows
          arch: Amd64
        runtime:
          type: Cloud
          spec: {}

There are several self-managed build infrastructure options. This example uses a Kubernetes cluster build infrastructure. For instructions and important information, go to Run Windows builds in a Kubernetes cluster build infrastructure.

stages:
  - stage:
      name: build
      identifier: build
      description: ""
      type: CI
      spec:
        cloneCodebase: true
        infrastructure:
          type: KubernetesDirect
          spec:
            connectorRef: YOUR_K8S_CLUSTER_CONNECTOR_ID
            namespace: YOUR_K8S_NAMESPACE
            automountServiceAccountToken: true
            nodeSelector:
              kubernetes.io/os: windows
            os: Windows

Install dependencies

Harness Cloud runners include pre-installed libraries and tools, and you can use Run steps to install additional dependencies or additional versions. For details about pre-installed tools and versions, go to Platforms and image specifications.

- step:
    type: Run
    identifier: dependencies
    name: Dependencies
    spec:
      shell: Powershell
      command: |-
        dotnet add package Newtonsoft.json --version 12.0.1

You can use Run steps to install dependencies.

- step:
    type: Run
    identifier: dependencies
    name: Dependencies
    spec:
      connectorRef: YOUR_IMAGE_REGISTRY_CONNECTOR
      image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:7.0
      shell: Powershell
      command: |-
        dotnet add package Newtonsoft.json --version 12.0.1

Cache dependencies

Add caching to your Build stage.

Cache your Windows app dependencies with Cache Intelligence. Add caching to your stage.spec and specify the paths to cache:

You can use built-in steps to:

YAML example: Save and restore cache steps

Here's an example of a pipeline with Save Cache to S3 and Restore Cache from S3 steps.

Build and run tests

Add Run steps to build and run your tests.

For some languages, you can leverage Harness' Test Intelligence feature to reduce unit test time.

Harness CI also supports test splitting (parallelism) for both Run and Test steps.

Visualize test results

You can view test results on the Tests tab of your pipeline executions. Harness supports JUnit XML and TRX test report formats. TRX reports are automatically converted to JUnit XML.

For your pipeline to produce test reports, you need to modify the Run step that runs your tests. Make sure the command generates test reports and add the reports specification.

For .NET projects, you can generate TRX reports natively using dotnet test -l:trx without needing a converter. If your test tool does not produce JUnit XML or TRX formatted reports by default, you can use a converter to output compatible JUnit XML reports, such as NUnit to JUnit or .NET trx2JUnit.

Install Visual Studio

Visual Studio 2019 Enterprise is pre-installed on Hosted Cloud runners. For details about all available tools and versions, go to Platforms and image specifications.

You can use a Run step to install a different version or edition of Visual Studio.

If not already included on your build machine, you can specify a container image that has the necessary binaries or use a Run step to install Visual Studio.

Specify shell

In steps that allow you to supply your own commands, such as Run steps and Background steps, you specify the shell in the step's settings.

Several shell binaries are pre-installed on Hosted Cloud runners, including Bash and PowerShell. For details about all available tools and versions, go to Platforms and image specifications.

You can also use Run steps to install different shell tools into the build environment, or specify a container image that has the necessary binaries for the command you want to run.

In steps that allow you to supply your own commands, such as Run steps and Background steps, you specify the shell in the step's settings.

You can also use Run steps to install different shell tools into the build environment, or specify a container image that has the necessary binaries for the command you want to run.

Setup .NET SDK

For details about building and testing .NET with Harness CI, including how to setup different versions of the .NET SDK, go to the C# (.NET Core) guide.

Full pipeline examples

The following full pipeline examples are based on the partial examples above.

If you copy this example, replace the placeholder values with appropriate values for your code repo connector and repository name. Depending on your project and organization, you may also need to replace projectIdentifier and orgIdentifier.

If you copy this example, replace the placeholder values with appropriate values for your code repo connector, Kubernetes cluster connector, Kubernetes namespace, and repository name. Depending on your project and organization, you may also need to replace projectIdentifier and orgIdentifier.

Next steps

Now that you have created a pipeline that builds and tests a Windows app, you could:

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