Team Foundation Server Automated Release Notes generation

Question

What would be the best method of automatically generating a Release Notes text file from a Team Foundation Server 2008 nightly build?

Answer 1

I would create a MSBuild custom task and put that inside of your build file. Inside of that custom task, you should be able to query the TFS API or database to generate any release notes you want.

Answer 2

We created a TFS report that lists all Work Items associated with a specified Iteration (version). In addition we added a custom field to Work Items to indicate if we wanted the work item included in the release notes report. (Not all Work Items are appropriate for all clients/users.)

You could automate this process but you would need to specify the iteration in your build task. Or you could list every work item that has been completed as of a specific date.

Answer 3

UPDATE:

I uploaded a sample xsl file for transforming the buildlog.xml to get an informative plain releasenotes.txt. Get it here: Automatically generate release notes textfile from Team Foundation Build

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That one is actually pretty easy. Grant Holliday describes it on his blog. It basically goes something like this:

1. Install MSBuild Community Tasks (which contains the WebDownload Task)
2. Install MSXSL.exe from Microsoft (for transforming xml files)
3. Extend the tfsbuild project with information regarding the retrieval of the buildlog.xml (using WebDownload task) and transformation with MSXSL.exe

However, you need to download the MSBuild Community Tasks directly from tigris and not use the link provided in this blog post. This is due to the fact, that the link refers to the wrong version which does not support the UseDefaultCredentials options (that you need for the MSBuild Task to be able to connect to the proper TFS Webservice).

Here is the link to the article: Building a release notes text file with team build

I got everything working except for the xsl file, because unfortunately, Grant does not offer a sample xsl. If you manage to create a proper xml transform file that fits your needs, it would be awesome if you can send me a copy. ;-)