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Azure DevOps Services
Use an organization to connect groups of related projects and help scale up your enterprise. You can use a personal Microsoft account, GitHub account, or a work or school account. When you use your work or school account, you automatically connect your organization to your Microsoft Entra ID.
Note
You must create all organizations manually through the web portal. Automated creation of organizations isn't supported. However, automated organization configuration, project creation, and resource provisioning are supported through the REST API.
Tip
You can use AI to help with this task later in this article, or see Enable AI assistance with Azure DevOps MCP Server to get started.
Prerequisites
| Category | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Azure subscription | You need an active Azure subscription to create new organizations. Existing organizations and free tier limits aren't affected. |
| Authentication | Decide whether you want to use only Microsoft accounts or authenticate users with Microsoft Entra ID. For more information, see Choosing your organization administrator account type. |
| Planning | Understand how to plan your organizational structure. |
Create an organization
Sign in to Azure DevOps.
Select New organization.
Enter the name for your organization, select its hosting geography, select an Azure subscription for billing, and then select Continue.
Important
Follow these guidelines when you create your organization name:
- Use only letters from the English alphabet
- Start your organization name with a letter or number
- Use letters, numbers, or hyphens after the initial character
- Keep your organization name under 50 Unicode characters
- End with a letter or number
If you use any disallowed characters, the following error message displays: VS850015: The specified name is not allowed to be used: {Organization name}.
Congratulations, you're an organization owner!
Sign in to your organization at any time by using
https://dev.azure.com/{Your_Organization}.
Free tier benefits
Your new organization includes the following free tier benefits:
- First five users free (Basic license)
- Azure Pipelines:
- One Microsoft-hosted CI/CD (one concurrent job, up to 30 hours per month)
- One self-hosted CI/CD concurrent job
- Azure Boards: Work item tracking and boards
- Azure Repos: Unlimited private Git repos
- Azure Artifacts: Two GiB free per organization
If you exceed these free tier limits, you pay for extra usage through your linked Azure subscription. For more information, see What happens when free tier limits are reached?
Next steps
Use AI to manage your organization
If you have the Azure DevOps MCP Server configured, you can use AI assistants to manage your Azure DevOps organization using natural language prompts. The MCP Server provides your AI assistant with secure access to your Azure DevOps data, allowing you to create projects, manage settings, and configure resources without navigating through the web interface.
Example prompts for organization management
| Task | Example prompt |
|---|---|
| Set up a new organization end-to-end | Create a new project called <project-name> in <organization-name> using Agile process with Git repos, then add <user-email> as a project administrator |
| Compare organization settings | Show the process templates, version control defaults, and security policies configured for <organization-name> |
| Bootstrap development infrastructure | In <organization-name>, create a project <project-name>, initialize a Git repo called <repo-name>, and set up a basic CI pipeline for a .NET application |
| Review organization limits | How many projects exist in <organization-name>, how many users have Basic access, and what Azure subscription is linked for billing? |
| Set up team structure | In the <project-name> project, create teams for Frontend, Backend, and QA, each with their own area path and iteration schedule |
| Configure initial security | Set up <organization-name> security: disable alternate credentials, require minimum PAT scope, and restrict project creation to admins only |
Tip
If you're using Visual Studio Code, agent mode is especially helpful for setting up a new organization and creating initial projects.
- To avoid using stale or cached data from previous queries, add to your prompt,
Do not use previously fetched data.