Build notifications for Azure DevOps

CatLight will show desktop build notifications in the tray. It will display an alert when a build pipeline fails, and also identify the person who broke the build first.

Use CatLight to see the current status of important Azure DevOps build jobs and tests. When a continuous integration build is broken, CatLight will change the color of the tray icon and show a notification alert. The tray icon will be a build light that reminds your team that it needs to be fixed.

How to configure build pipeline notifications?

1. Get CatLight app

Download CatLight. The app works on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

2. Connect to Azure DevOps

Click on "Start new configuration", and select Azure DevOps connection. Provide the url of the account where you want to monitor builds.

3. Select build pipelines to monitor

CatLight can monitor build pipelines in multiple Azure DevOps projects and accounts at the same time. You will receive combined notifications from all of the pipelines. You can later share the monitoring settings with the team, so each developer does not need to configure this individually.

4. Get desktop notifications

CatLight will show a notification when the build starts, succeeds, or fails. For new builds, it will provide an estimated completion time, and for failed builds, it will identify the person who broke it first.

Screenshots above show notifications on Windows, and they will look similar on macOS and Linux. So your whole team can stay aware, regardless of the platform that they are on.

CatLight benefits for build monitoring

A better alternative to email build notifications

Compared to email notifications, CatLight saves your time by focusing on the current state, and not the history of changes. Developers can get too many build notification emails, and will start ignoring them after a while. Unlike emails, CatLight keeps reminding engineers about failed builds with a tray status icon, until they fix them.

Build status dashboard

CatLight can show the status of selected Azure DevOps builds on a monitoring dashboard. It will also show the personalized status of release pipelines, pull requests, and work items. You can create multiple dashboards and share them with the team.

The default dashboard has two panels:

• Action list, that includes all the broken builds. To avoid distractions, it shows only action items for the current user.
• Watch list that will show the builds that you have recently started, with the newest builds on top.

If you have a big screen, you can put the CatLight dashboard on a shared TV for the whole team to see.

Build investigations

When a build is broken, CatLight will alert the whole team, and anyone can press the "I will investigate" button on the dashboard. CatLight will then notify the team that somebody is looking at the build.

Investigating person can add comments to the investigation to provide a status update, or share the root cause of the problem in case the build breaks again in the future.

Build notification filters

You can create filters for notifications. For example, you can get alerts only for specific branches, projects, or pipelines. You can also customize the dashboard to show only recent builds or the builds that you have personally started.

Notifications for gated check-ins and PR builds

CatLight will tell you when your gated build is completed and changes are ready to be checked in. You can choose what type of notifications you want to see in the settings.

Improve team productivity

CatLight improves the productivity of the whole engineering team. It can help to stabilize CI/CD pipelines and reduce distractions for developers. Read more about use cases for developers, and benefits for managers.

Who is using CatLight for build monitoring?

CatLight is used by leading large and small companies for build monitoring. See the list of top users and their testimonials.

CatLight is a top app on Microsoft Visual Studio Marketplace , with over 40,000 installs and 4.5/5 rating.

Monitor releases, pull requests, and work items

CatLight can also:

• Show notifications for Azure DevOps release pipelines for continuous delivery
• Show Azure DevOps pull request notifications and reminders
• Show notifications about new and changed Azure DevOps work items