version: "1.0.1" name: investigating-pipeline description: >- Diagnoses a single Azure Pipelines build. Shows the build timeline tree with stages, jobs, and task results, and retrieves task logs for debugging failures. Use when a user provides a build ID or Azure DevOps build URL and wants to understand what failed and why.
Investigating Azure Pipelines builds
This document contains useful patterns for inspecting Azure Pipelines builds.
How to view the build timeline
Use Show-BuildTimeline.ps1 to view a build's timeline. This includes all stages, jobs, and tasks along with their results.
shell
pwsh ./eng/docker-tools/skill-helpers/Show-BuildTimeline.ps1 <org> <project> <buildId>
Each node includes a log ID (Task #42 means log ID 42).
How to read pipeline logs
First, get the log ID from the build timeline. Then, use Get-BuildLog.ps1 to print the full log:
shell
pwsh ./eng/docker-tools/skill-helpers/Get-BuildLog.ps1 -Organization dnceng -Project internal -BuildId $buildId -LogId $logId