Can TFS or Visual Studio remind me about issues that have to be solved before a check in

Question

I'm actually working on a tool that need some configuration before it can be used. To save some time a hard coded some values into the text boxes of the configuration tab, so I don't have to renter them every time I do some testing or debugging.

As we're using TFS to manage our solutions I'm wondering if there is a way to mark those hard coded elements in some way so that TFS or Visual Studio 2008 will remind me to remove/replace them before I do a check in.

UPDATE:

The todo comments won't be a real solution as we're already using it to mark code segments which have to be reworked. We use it as a reminder for longterm tasks. And we have plenty of them so this might become a little bit unclear.

Answer 1

You could write a unit test that fails when the hardcoded stuff is found. Obviously, you won't get a reminder before checking in but you do get a build failure afterwards.

Answer 2

Probably not the perfect solution, but Visual Studio let's you add TODO comments that may work well enough for you.

Answer 3

Some options:

1. write a custom checkin policy
2. use the existing FxCop checkin policy and write a custom rule (if you're marking TODOs with something that gets actually compiled, like an Attribute)
3. ditto, but via the StyleCop checkin policy (if your TODOs are source comments)