Secure Production Branches with Azure DevOps Branch Policy: Keep Your Secrets Safe!

Protect Production Branches From Having Secrets Through an Azure DevOps Branch Policy
Introduction
Azure DevOps is Microsoft’s DevOps solution that provides an end-to-end development lifecycle platform to enable collaboration between development and operations teams. This article will discuss how to protect production branches from having secrets through an Azure DevOps branch policy.

Why Secure Production Branches?
Deploying code to production is a critical step in the application development process. It is essential that production deployments are secure and that the code deployed is tested and verified. One way to ensure the safety of your production deployments is to secure your production branches from having secrets in them. This can be done through an Azure DevOps branch policy.

What is an Azure DevOps Branch Policy?
An Azure DevOps branch policy is an automated policy that is enforced on a branch in a repository. It is used to ensure the security and quality of the code that is pushed to the branch. A branch policy can be configured to enforce that any code pushed to the branch is properly tested and verified before it is deployed.

How to Create an Azure DevOps Branch Policy to Protect Production Branches?
Creating an Azure DevOps branch policy to protect production branches is straightforward. Here are the steps to create an Azure DevOps branch policy to protect production branches:

Step 1: Navigate to the Azure DevOps Repository
The first step is to navigate to the Azure DevOps repository. You should see a list of branches for the repository.

Step 2: Select the Production Branch
Once you have navigated to the repository, locate the production branch and select it. Once the production branch is selected, you can then configure the branch policy.

Step 3: Configure the Branch Policy
The next step is to configure the branch policy. To do this, click on the “Branch Policies” tab on the right-hand side of the screen.

Step 4: Add the Policy to the Branch
Once the branch policy is configured, it needs to be added to the branch. To do this, click on the “Add Policy” button and select the policy that you created in the previous step.

Step 5: Enable the Policy
The last step is to enable the policy. To do this, click on the “Enable Policy” button and then click on the “Save” button to save the policy.

Conclusion
Protecting production branches from having secrets is an important step in the application development process. An Azure DevOps branch policy can be used to ensure the security and quality of code that is pushed to the branch. This article discussed how to create an Azure DevOps branch policy to protect production branches.
References:
Protect production branches from having secrets through an Azure DevOps branch policy
.

1. Secure Production Branches
2. Azure DevOps Branch Policies