How do you publish files back to VSTS Release Management as part of a release?

@DonRolling, thanks for the detailed answer. In my case instead of adding a new task to compress the folder i just included that part in the powershell:

Compress-Archive -Path "$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/TestFolder/ScreenShots" -DestinationPath "$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/TestFolder/ScreenShots" -Force

Write-host "##vso[task.uploadfile]$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/TestFolder/ScreenShots.zip"

I hope to provide more clarity to those looking for an answer. The accepted answer does work.

I had a lot of files (browser screenshots) to add to the release logs. Here's what I did:

If you have lots of files, Archive them into a zip. enter image description here

Attach the zip to the log files via powershell.

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Download the logs

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Unzip and enjoy!

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Release management does not have a container for build artifacts, that's why you see this error message.

You can try with following task:

Write-host "##vso[task.uploadfile]<filename>"

View and download attachments associated with releases

Would you like to upload additional logs or diagnostics or images when running tasks in a release? This feature enables users to upload additional files during deployments. To upload a new file, use the following agent command in your script:

Write-host "##vso[task.uploadfile]"

The file is then available as part of the release logs. When you download all the logs associated with the release, you will be able to retrieve this file as well.

You can also add a powershell script task in your release definition to read the log files and output it to the console. Then you will be see the content of the log files from "Logs" tab powershell script step. And you can also click "Download all logs as zip" to download the logs. enter image description here

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I was facing a similar problem but I also wanted to use the Artifacts in a subsequent agent phase.

Based on the previous answers I created an Extension that offers the possibility to:

  • Upload a file or a folder to the Release Logs
  • Automatically download an Artifact from the logs that was previously uploaded

The upload task is making use of the logging command as it was mentioned before. The download task then queries the Azure DevOps REST Api to download all logs collected thus far, tries to find the specified artifact and copies it to a specific place.

If anyone is interested, it can be found on the Marketplace