How to Set Up Continuous Integration for a GitHub Project Using Azure DevOps

Microsoft Azure DevOps is an integrated software development management tool that combines requirements, code, build, test, and release functions. This article shows how to use Azure DevOps to set up continuous integration for a project hosted on GitHub and display the latest build status on GitHub.

Azure DevOps was formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services, with the on‑premises version called Team Foundation Server (TFS). The name was changed to emphasize Microsoft’s open‑source and cloud‑first strategy.

First, create a new Azure DevOps project that will be used solely for building code. After the project is created, click the blue rocket icon to open the Pipeline feature.

In the Pipeline section, choose Build and then select New build pipeline from the New menu.

When prompted to select a source, choose GitHub . If you have not previously linked GitHub to Azure DevOps, you will need to authorize Azure DevOps to access your GitHub repositories.

After the connection is established, select the desired repository and branch.

Configure the build steps: because the example project is a .NET Standard 2.0 class library, the .NET Desktop template is chosen. You can also select other predefined templates (Android, iOS, web projects, etc.) or create an empty template and configure each step manually.

Rename the pipeline for easier identification, and adjust individual steps as needed—for example, update the NuGet version to 4.9.2 or remove the test step if the solution has no unit tests.

Enable continuous integration by selecting Enable continuous integration under the Trigger settings, and optionally enable Enable pull request validation to run builds on PRs.

Copy the generated Markdown badge from the Options tab and paste it into the README.md of your GitHub project, then commit the change. The badge will display the latest build status.

Finally, click Save & queue in Azure DevOps to start the build. You will see the build start, can view detailed logs, and, if successful, a green “succeeded” label will appear on the GitHub project page, updating automatically with each new commit.