Prevent unnecessary artifact download when using Release Management

Question

I'm using TFS 2015 Update 2 Release Management (i.e, the "Release" tab), and I've got my build putting the desired output in a file share drop location. It looks something like:

/Drop
--> /App 1
--> /App 2
--> /App 3

My Release Definition has a Powershell task to deploy each application. This works great, and because each of the above apps (App 1, App 2, App 3) are all defined as their own artifacts, I get nice path selection when I bring up the Linked Artifacts dialog when finding the powershell script to execute.

The problem is when the VSOAgent is doing the deployment on a given deployment server, it downloads ALL linked artifacts for the entire release definition - regardless of if they're used. So if I have a single Powershell task referencing App 1, I get App 2 and App 3 downloaded as well.

In my case, my build results in dozens of artifacts, only perhaps 20% of which are deployed to any given environment. So I'm download a TON of stuff that I don't need. Indeed, this means something that should take (and DID take in the old Release Management) perhaps 5 minutes now takes 20 minutes just to download the artifacts.

Is there a way to prevent this?

Answer 1

Just released. VSTS and TFS 2018 has a new feature that might fit your needs

Previously, as part of a deployment phase, you could choose to either download all the artifacts or skip them all. Now you can choose the artifacts that need to be downloaded. This can save time by ensuring the agent only has to download what it needs. See the release artifacts documentation for more information. This feature was prioritized based on a suggestion.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/releasenotes/tfs2018-update2#improve-release-times-by-partially-downloading-artifacts

https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/330519-visual-studio-team-services/suggestions/13396200-only-download-artifacts-required-for-task-executio?tracking_code=200f3ad38ab610cdbbdbb2afa5a9b7a5#{toggle_previous_statuses}