Quick Notes222 words
Agent and runner infrastructure — quick notes
Agents and runners — quick notes
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Microsoft-hosted availability | Azure DevOps Services only — not Azure DevOps Server |
| Microsoft-hosted billing | Current paid plan: parallel-job concurrency. Free hosted job: minute limits. Legacy per-minute plans exist |
| GitHub-hosted for Pipelines | Preview, region-dependent, per-minute PAYG, no free tier |
| Microsoft-hosted state | Fresh VM for every job; filesystem discarded afterward |
| Cross-run pipeline cache | Cache@2 restores server-backed files such as dependencies |
| Self-hosted advantage | Caches + configuration persist run to run |
| Self-hosted reasons | Machine-bound tooling · direct private connectivity · machine-local state |
| Elastic self-hosted | VM Scale Set agents; Managed DevOps Pools now recommended |
| Managed/VMSS cost in Services | Azure resources + self-hosted parallel-job capacity |
| Self-hosted maintenance | Own OS/tools, workspace hygiene, least-privilege security; required agent updates can be automatic |
Traps
- "Use Microsoft-hosted with Azure DevOps Server" — impossible; hosted is Services-only.
- "A fresh hosted job cannot reuse dependencies" — false;
Cache@2restores a pipeline cache. - "Microsoft-hosted is never minute-limited" — false; distinguish paid current-plan concurrency from free and legacy minute limits.
Primary sources
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/credentials/certifications/resources/study-guides/az-400
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/agents
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/hosted
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/tasks/reference/cache-v2
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/licensing/concurrent-jobs
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/github-hosted
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/managed-devops-pools/migrate-from-scale-set-agents
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/managed-devops-pools/pricing
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/security/misc
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/agents/v5-agent