Drive Git development from a work item in Azure Boards

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server | Azure DevOps Server 2022

Link work items to branches, commits, pull requests, and builds so your team can trace every code change back to a planned task. When you create a branch from a work item, Azure Boards links them automatically.

This article walks through creating branches, linking commits, and managing pull requests in an Azure DevOps Git repository. For GitHub repositories, see Link GitHub commits and pull requests to work items.

Development control

The Development control on the work item form displays linked branches, commits, pull requests, and builds in one place. From this control, you can create branches or pull requests and navigate directly to any linked artifact.

Prerequisites

Create a branch, make changes, and submit a pull request

1. In the Development section of the work item, select Create a branch.

   

   Alternatively, select Actions > New branch.

   

2. Name the branch, select the repository, and select Create branch.

   

   The branch links to the work item automatically, and the repository opens to the new branch.

   Note

   The main branch must contain at least one file before you can create a branch. Each new project includes a README file in the initial repo.

3. Edit files in the web portal, or clone the repo and work locally in Visual Studio or another IDE. For more information, see Download changes with fetch.

4. Commit and push your changes to the repository.

   

   For a new branch, publish it before pushing. For more information, see Share code with push.

5. In the Development section, create a pull request to merge your changes and start a code review.

   

6. Complete the pull request on the Pull Requests page.

   

   Note

   You can't create another pull request for the same branch until the current one completes.

   

   (Optional) Select Squash changes when merging, and then complete the merge.

   

7. A confirmation appears after the pull request completes.

   

8. Refresh the work item form and select Maximize Development to see links for the branch, commits, and pull request.

   

Create a branch for several work items

Use multi-select on the backlog or board to select multiple work items, and then create a branch that links to all of them at once.

Specify the branch name in the dialog.

Link to existing development and build objects

Development links also appear on the Links and History tabs of the work item form.

To link a work item to an existing branch, commit, build, or other object, select Add link and choose the link type.

Remove a link

In the Development section, select the link and select Remove link .

On the Links tab, select Actions > Remove link for the link.

Associated work items in build

The build summary page shows work items linked to Git commits under Associated work items.

Supported link types

Links appear in the Development section when you:

• Create a branch, commit, or pull request from the work item
• Reference the work item ID in a commit, pull request, or other Git or TFVC operation
• Manually add a link from the Development section or Links tab

Supported link types include Branch, Build, Changeset, Commit, Found in build, Integrated in build, Pull Request, and Versioned Item.

Use AI to link work items to development

If you connect the Azure Boards MCP Server to your AI agent in agent mode, you can use natural language prompts to manage links between work items and development objects.

Related content

• Learn about Azure DevOps cross-service
• Configure pipelines to support work tracking
• Manage work items
• Learn about Git
• Link GitHub commits and pull requests to work items
• Link to work items from other objects