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Can you please draw me an ASCII diagram of how Service Connections allow Azure Pipelines to make outbound calls to 3rd-party services? Especially if the Service Connection type and the Azure Pipelines task only exist thanks to a plugin being installed into the Azure DevOps organization hosting the Azure Pipelines pipelines

Here’s an ASCII diagram illustrating how Service Connections allow Azure Pipelines to make outbound calls to 3rd-party services, including the scenario where a plugin enables a custom Service Connection type and task:

+-------------------+     +------------------------+
| Azure DevOps Org  |     |   Azure Pipelines      |
|                   |     |                        |
| +--------------+  |     | +------------------+   |
| |   Plugin     |  |     | |    Pipeline      |   |
| | +-----------+|  |     | |                  |   |
| | |Service    ||  |     | | +-------------+  |   |
| | |Connection ||  |     | | |  Task       |  |   |
| | |Type       ||  |     | | | (defined by |  |   |
| | +-----------+|  |     | | |  plugin)    |  |   |
| | |Task       ||  |     | | +-------------+  |   |
| | |Definition ||  |     | |        |         |   |
| | +-----------+|  |     | |        |         |   |
| +--------------+  |     | |        |         |   |
|         |         |     | |        |         |   |
|         |         |     | |        |         |   |
|  +---------------+|     | |        |         |   |
|  |Service        ||     | |        |         |   |
|  |Connection     ||     | |        |         |   |
|  |(Configuration)||<----+ |        |         |   |
|  +---------------+|      \|/       |         |   |
+-------------------+   +---v--------v------+  |   |
                        |  Service          |  |   |
                        |  Connection       |  |   |
                        |  (Runtime)        |  |   |
                        +-------------------+  |   |
                                 |             |   |
                                 |             |   |
                        +--------v----------+  |   |
                        |   Outbound Call   |  |   |
                        |   (Authenticated) |  |   |
                        +-------------------+  |   |
                                 |             |   |
                                 |             |   |
                        +--------v----------+  |   |
                        |   3rd-party       |  |   |
                        |   Service         |  |   |
                        +-------------------+  |   |
                                                |   |
                        +------------------------+

This ASCII diagram illustrates the following process:

  1. A plugin is installed in the Azure DevOps organization, providing a custom Service Connection type and task definition1.
  2. The Service Connection is configured in the Azure DevOps project settings, storing authentication details securely1.
  3. The Azure Pipeline includes a task that uses the custom Service Connection12.
  4. During pipeline execution, the task leverages the Service Connection to make an authenticated outbound call to the 3rd-party service13.
  5. The 3rd-party service receives the authenticated request and responds accordingly.

This setup allows Azure Pipelines to securely communicate with external services while keeping sensitive authentication details separate from the pipeline definition13. The plugin extends Azure DevOps functionality, enabling integration with a wider range of external services1.

⁂

  1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/library/service-endpoints?view=azure-devops ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59051326/authorising-pipelines-against-azure-devops-service-connection ↩

  3. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/library/connect-to-azure?view=azure-devops ↩ ↩2