FAQ

Does BranchDeploy work with GitHub or Bitbucket?

No. BranchDeploy is an Azure DevOps Marketplace extension and only works with Azure DevOps organisations that use Azure Repos for source control and Azure Pipelines for CI/CD.

GitHub Actions, Bitbucket Pipelines, and Jenkins are not supported.

Does BranchDeploy store my credentials or personal access token?

No. The free tier uses your existing Azure DevOps browser session. BranchDeploy makes API calls on your behalf using the SDK token Azure DevOps provides to installed extensions — the same mechanism that any work item extension uses. No credentials leave your organisation.

BranchDeploy does not ask you to create or paste a PAT.

What happens if I have two branches linked to the same work item?

Free tier: BranchDeploy shows an error listing both branches and asks you to remove the extra link before retrying. This is intentional — deploying without knowing which branch was intended is more dangerous than blocking.

Pro tier: A picker appears so you can select which branch to deploy from the list of candidates.

What happens if a PR and a branch are both linked?

If a pull request is linked, BranchDeploy uses the PR’s source branch and ignores any separately linked branch refs. A PR is a stronger signal of intent than a loose branch link.

Can I deploy to multiple environments from the same work item?

Free tier: One active environment per project. To change the target environment, update the settings page.

Pro tier: Configure multiple environments. The deploy action shows a picker so you can select which environment to deploy to from the work item.

What pipeline permissions does BranchDeploy need?

BranchDeploy requires:

• Read access to Azure Repos (to look up branches and PRs)
• Queue builds permission on the configured pipeline

No service principal, managed identity, or dedicated service account is required. BranchDeploy uses the session of the person clicking the action.

Can I restrict which users can deploy?

Not directly in BranchDeploy — but you can use Azure Pipelines’ native Security settings on the pipeline to restrict who can queue builds. If a user does not have permission to queue the pipeline, BranchDeploy’s deploy action will fail with a permissions error for that user.

Does BranchDeploy work with Azure DevOps Server (on-premises)?

No. BranchDeploy is published to the Azure DevOps Marketplace (cloud) and targets the dev.azure.com hosted service. Azure DevOps Server (previously TFS) is not supported.

Can I use BranchDeploy without linking branches to work items?

No. BranchDeploy’s entire job is to resolve the branch from the work item’s development links. If there is no linked branch or PR, there is nothing to deploy.

Does BranchDeploy support multi-stage pipelines?

Yes. BranchDeploy uses the standard Run Pipeline API, which works with both classic pipelines and YAML multi-stage pipelines. The parameters block you define in your YAML is available to all stages.

Is there a free trial for Pro?

Not currently. The free tier is permanently free with no time limit. Pro features are available on paid plans — see the pricing page for details.

How do I cancel a subscription?

Log in to the billing portal (link in your welcome email) and cancel at any time. Your subscription remains active until the end of the current billing period. No refunds are issued for unused periods.

Where is my data stored?

For the free tier, BranchDeploy stores your configuration in Azure DevOps Extension Data storage — the same secure per-project store used by all official Azure DevOps extensions. No data leaves your Azure DevOps organisation.

For Pro, BranchDeploy logs deployment requests to a backend database hosted on Cloudflare infrastructure in the EU. See the privacy policy for details.

How do I report a bug or request a feature?

Email support@branch-deploy.dev or open a request on the support page. Include your organisation URL, the error message, and steps to reproduce.