Variable Group Formatter

This extension enables you to format variable groups in your Azure Pipelines.

Getting Started

After installing the extension you will find the Task available in Release and Build Pipelines.

Then you can set the parameters:

Paramaters

The following parameters are supported in the task:

Parameter label	Parameter name (for YAML)	Description
Variable Group ID	variableGroupID	Variable Group ID. You can get this value from Azure Devops in the url when you are in a Group Variable or using azure cli
Output Format	outputFormat	The output format for the variables in the Variable Group ID. Accepted values are: Command Line Arguments and JSON

Output

The result of the task is expected in an output variable: formattedVariables. See the examples section for more information.

Formats

If you have a Variable Group with the following values

Variable Name	Variable Value
Variable1	Value 1
Variable2	Value 2

Based on the Output Format selected you will get the following output:

Output Format	Expected Result
Command Line Arguments	-Variable1 "Value 1" -Variable2 "Value 2"
JSON	[ {name:"Variable1",value:"Value 1"}, {name:"Variable2",value:"Value 2"} ]

Examples

Override some ARM templates based on a library

In this example, using Output Format as Command Line Arguments we are able to replace dynamically ARM template parameters using all the values from a Variable Group

steps:
- task: VariableGroupFormatter@0
  name: variableGroup
  displayName: "Format variables"
  inputs:
    variableGroupID: '6'
    outputFormat: 'Command Line Arguments'

- task: AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3
  inputs:
    deploymentScope: 'Resource Group'
    azureResourceManagerConnection: '$(MyConnection)'
    subscriptionId: '$(MySubscription)'
    action: 'Create Or Update Resource Group'
    resourceGroupName: '$(ResourceGroup)'
    location: 'South Central US'
    templateLocation: 'Linked artifact'
    csmFile: 'Armtemplate.json'
    overrideParameters: '$(variableGroup.formattedVariables)'
    deploymentMode: 'Incremental'