Automating inspection of health

Release gates

Release gates allow the automatic collection of health signals from external services and then promote the release when all the signs are booming simultaneously or stop the deployment on timeout. Typically, gates are connected with incident management, problem management, change management, monitoring, and external approval systems.

Events, subscriptions, and notifications

Events are raised when specific actions occur, like when a release is started or a build is completed. A notification subscription is associated with a supported event type. The subscription ensures you get notified when a specific event occurs. Notifications are usually emails that you receive when an event occurs to which you're subscribed.

Service hooks

Service hooks enable you to do tasks on other services when events happen in your Azure DevOps Services projects. For example, create a card in Trello when a work item is created or send a push notification to your team's Slack when a build fails. Service hooks can also be used in custom apps and services as a more efficient way to drive activities when events happen in your projects.

Built-in support for the service hooks in Azure

Build and release	Collaborate	Customer support	Plan and track	Integrate
AppVeyor	Campfire	UserVoice	Trello	Azure Service Bus
Bamboo	Flowdock	Zendesk	-	Azure Storage
Jenkins	HipChat	-	-	Web Hooks
MyGet	Hubot	-	-	Zapier
Slack	-	-	-	-

Reporting

Reporting is the most static approach to inspection but also the most evident in many cases. Creating a dashboard that shows the status of your build and releases combined with team-specific information is, in many cases, a valuable asset to get insights.