Optimizing CI/CD Pipeline Reliability in Azure DevOps

Project Title: Optimizing CI/CD Pipeline Reliability in Azure DevOps

Technologies Used:

• Azure DevOps
• Node.js
• npm
• YAML Pipelines
• Vue.js

Summary/Challenge:

A core Continuous Integration (CI) build step in our Azure DevOps pipeline, responsible for installing Node.js dependencies (npm install), was failing intermittently. This created non-deterministic builds and required manual pipeline re-runs, wasting developer time.

Solution & Implementation:

The fix involved two key changes to the Azure DevOps YAML pipeline:

1. Switched to npm ci (Clean Install): Migrated the installation command from the non-deterministic npm install to the faster and more reliable npm ci.
2. Added Explicit Directory Cleanup: Inserted a DeleteFiles@1 task immediately before the installation step to explicitly clean up the working directory and remove any potentially corrupt node_modules folder.

Key Achievements & Impact:

• Achieved 100% build reliability for the dependency installation step.
• Eliminated manual pipeline re-runs, saving developer time.
• Implemented a faster and more deterministic build process.