Resource owners configure these in the web portal rather than YAML, on environments, agent pools, repositories, secure files, variable groups and service connections; a stage can't use the resource until all pass. GitHub's equivalent: environment protection rules.
Read more: Microsoft Learn
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Approvals and checks in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- YAML
A data format designed to be easy for people to read, used for Container Apps definitions, ACR multi-step tasks and Kubernetes manifests.
- Agent
A specialised form of Microsoft Copilot set up for one particular job, pairing instructions with knowledge and skills. You can create one in Copilot Studio, SharePoint or Agent Builder, and administrators control them from the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Secure files
Kept encrypted in the Azure Pipelines library, these hold things like SSH keys, keystores, signing certificates or provisioning profiles, at most 10 MB apiece, and a pipeline retrieves them via the Download Secure File task. They count as protected resources.
- ALL
A DAX function that ignores any filters and gives back every row of a table or every value of the named columns. Used within CALCULATE, it works as a modifier that clears filters, although REMOVEFILTERS states that intent more clearly where it is available.
- Azure Machine Learning environment
Versioned asset that pairs a Docker image with a pip or conda specification, so every job or deployment using it gets identical dependencies. You point to it by name plus a version number, or by name with @latest.
Related terms
- Azure Pipelines
CI/CD service within Azure DevOps that deploys applications and infrastructure as code, with environments, approvals and checks.
- Pipeline stage
Groups jobs inside an Azure Pipelines run. Before each one begins, approvals and checks are evaluated, and stages follow one another unless dependsOn says otherwise.
- UI
User interface. In Azure DevOps, certain settings, like pipeline secret variables and approvals and checks, are configured through the web portal and not in YAML.