The Release Workflow
A four-step wizard that takes a work item from "I've finished my change" through to "it's finalised, tagged, and the pipeline's been kicked." Open it from Deployment → Release Workflow.
- Step indicator: numbered breadcrumb showing all four steps; the current step is highlighted.
- Current step content: the form for the active step (here, Step 1: Work Item).
- Next button: advances to the next step when the current step is complete.
The four steps
The tab shows a numbered step indicator at the top, the current step's content in the middle, and Back / Next buttons at the bottom. Back is visible whenever you can go backwards; Next is visible whenever you can go forwards.
On Git, leaving Step 2 fetches from the remote. If the remote is ahead, an extra Incoming step comes before the Deployment File step, and the later steps are numbered one higher: pull the incoming commits there before going on, so the deployment file reflects the latest and the push is not rejected. Next refuses to leave it while commits are still to pull (Incoming changes not pulled).
The step labels adapt to the workspace. The Git label on the last step is usually Push, the TFVC label is usually Finalize, and the label on step 1 depends on the task tracker (Task, Story, etc.).
Each step's full walkthrough:
When to use it
Use the Release Workflow when you're about to hand a change off: to CI/CD, to ops, to a reviewer. It bundles the VCS commit, the deployment-file production, and the push / tag / pipeline-trigger actions into a single guided flow.
Don't use it for day-to-day editing. For editing, extracting, comparing, and running scripts, work on the component grid.
Prerequisites
Before Step 1 can do anything useful, the workspace needs:
| Requirement | Why |
|---|---|
| An active version-control session (Git or TFVC) | Step 2 commits; Step 4 pushes / checks in. |
| A database connection | So generated deployment files reference a real target. |
| (Optional) A task-tracker connection | Unlocks ID lookup and task-attachment on Step 1 and Step 3. |
| (Optional) Settings on the Release tab | See Workspace Settings → Release. Configures where the deployment file goes, whether to tag, and which CI/CD pipeline to trigger on finalise. |
Without the wizard
Every step can be done manually from the regular tabs: commit from the Git Outgoing view, build a deployment from the Deployment view, push from the Version Control menu. The wizard is an ergonomic path through the common case, not the only path. For unusual release shapes (multi-ticket, cherry-picks, split commits), fall back to doing it by hand.