Set Git repository settings and policies

TFS 2017

There are several ways to customize your Azure Repos Git repositories by using branch and repository settings and policies. This article discusses repository-level settings and policies.

• Repository settings and policies configure global options for all Git repositories for a project or organization, or for individual repositories.

  This article discusses server-side repository settings and policies. To learn about client-side Git preferences, see Git preferences and settings in Visual Studio.

• Branch policies cover branch-specific controls.

  Branch policies include options like requiring a pull request, a successful build, or a code review before changes can merge into a branch. For more information, see Branch policies and settings.

• Repository and branch security permissions control user assignments.

  These permissions control who can read, write, contribute to pull requests, and take other specific actions. For more information, see Set permissions for a repository.

Summary of all repository and branch settings and policies

You can configure settings and policies for all repositories in a project, for individual repositories, and for branches of repositories. In the browser, you configure all these settings and policies through Project settings > Repositories. With Azure CLI, you use az repos policy.

Azure DevOps CLI commands aren't supported for Azure DevOps Server on-premises versions.

The following tables summarize the settings and policies you can enable and configure for Git repositories and branches.

All Repositories Settings

The following table summarizes the settings you can enable and configure for all new Git repositories in a project or in an organization.

Repository Settings

The following table summarizes the settings you can enable or configure for each individual Git repository.

Branch policies

The following table summarizes the policies you can define to customize a branch. For more information on configuring these settings, see Improve code quality with branch policies. When you set any policy on a branch, the following policies are automatically enforced:

• Pull requests are required to update the branch.
• The branch can't be deleted.

Prerequisites

• To configure policies, you must be a member of the Project Administrators security group, or have repository-level Edit policies permissions. To learn more, see Set Git repository permissions.

View and edit settings and policies

You can configure settings for all repositories across an organization or project, or for individual repositories. You can configure policies for all repositories, for individual repositories, or for specified branches across repositories. For information about setting branch policies, see Branch policies.

Gravatar images

This setting enables or disables the use of Gravatar images for users outside your enterprise.

Gravatar images is an individual repository setting.

Work item linking settings

These repository settings manage work item linking.

1. Select Project Settings > Repositories, and then select a repository.
2. On the Settings tab of the <Repository name> page, turn the settings On or Off.

Commit mention linking

When enabled, commit messages containing # followed by a valid work item ID automatically link the commit to that work item. Disable this setting if the repository previously used a different account or service. Those repositories might have commit messages with # mentions that don't match the work item IDs in the current account.

Work item transition preferences

By default, the option to complete linked work items during pull request completion remembers each user's last choice. Teams that want to discourage users from completing work items with their pull requests can disable this setting. Users must then opt in to completing work items each time they complete a pull request.

Cross-repo branch policies

You can set policies on a specific branch name, or on the default branch, across all repositories in a project. For example, you could require two minimum reviewers for all pull requests in every main branch for all project repositories.

To set policies to protect specific or default branch names across a project:

1. From Project Settings, select Repositories in the left navigation.

2. On the All Repositories page, select the Policies tab.

3. Select the plus sign + in Branch Policies at the bottom of the page.

4. On the Add branch protection screen, select Protect the default branch of each repository, or Protect current and future branches matching a specified pattern.

   If you select the second option, enter the branch name to protect. An informational message lets you know how many current branches are affected. The branch doesn't have to exist yet to protect the branch name.

5. Select Create.

   

6. On the Cross-Repository policies for <branch name> page, set the policies you want for the protected branches. For more information about branch policies, see Branch policies.

   

Commit author email validation policy

This policy blocks commits to a repository by commit authors whose email addresses don't match a pattern.

1. Select Project Settings > Repositories, and select a repository if you want to configure only that repository.

2. On the Policies tab of the All Repositories or <Repository name> page, under Repository Policies, set Commit author email validation to On or Off.

3. If you turn on the policy, specify the email address or addresses to match.

   You can specify exact email addresses or use wildcards. Use ; as a separator for multiple email patterns. Email patterns prefixed with ! are excluded. Order is important.

File path validation policy

You can set a policy that prevents commits to a repository from file paths that match a pattern.

1. Select Project Settings > Repositories, and select a repository if you want to configure only that repository.

2. On the Policies tab of the All Repositories or <Repository name> page, under Repository Policies, set File path validation to On or Off.

3. If you turn on the policy, specify the path or paths to block.

   You can specify exact paths and wildcards. Exact paths begin with /. You can also specify multiple paths by using ; as a separator. Paths prefixed with ! are excluded. Order is important.

Case enforcement policy

Reserved names policy

Not all filenames are allowed on the three major OS file systems: Windows, macOS, and Linux. Commits to a shared repository might contain file or folder names that are invalid on one or more platforms. If invalid files or folders are fetched and checked out on these platforms, working directories can become corrupted. For more information, see Git Cross-Platform Compatibility.

You can enable or disable policies to place restrictions on file and folder names. The Reserved names setting blocks pushes to a repository that contain file or folder names that are invalid on all platforms. To see what names are invalid, see Git Cross-Platform Compatibility.

To set the reserved names policy:

1. Select Project Settings > Repositories, and select a repository if you want to configure only that repository.
2. On the Policies tab of the All Repositories or <Repository name> page, under Repository Policies, set Reserved names to On or Off.

Maximum path length policy

Not all path lengths are allowed on the three major OS file systems: Windows, macOS, and Linux. Commits to a shared repository might contain files or directories with path lengths that are invalid on one or more platforms. If these files or directories are fetched and checked out on a platform where they're invalid, working directories can become corrupted. For more information, see Git Cross-Platform Compatibility.

The Maximum path length setting blocks pushes that contain files or directories with path lengths that are invalid on any platform. To see what path lengths are invalid, see Git Cross-Platform Compatibility. When you enable this setting, the default maximum value is 248, because that maximum length is 100% supported across all three major platforms.

You can modify the maximum path value. For example, if you only have macOS or Linux developers in your organization, you might choose to set the maximum length to the value that's supported on both platforms, 1016. You might also choose to set a lower maximum path value to enforce your organization's directory-naming conventions.

To set the maximum path length policy:

1. Select Project Settings > Repositories, and select a repository if you want to configure only that repository.
2. On the Policies tab of the All Repositories or <Repository name> page, under Repository Policies, set Maximum path length to On or Off.
3. If you turned on the setting, enter a maximum path length.

Maximum file size policy

Large files checked into Git remain in the repository indefinitely, increasing clone times and disk usage. For guidance on managing large files, see Manage and store large files in Git.

Next steps

Related articles

• Configure Git repository policies using a configuration file
• Default Git permissions (Security)
• Set permissions (Security)
• Cross-service integration overview