Tfs 2010 Build: Continuous Integration and Gated Check-In together?

Question

I already have a CI build running on my Tfs2010 instance, but I'd like to get a Gated checkin build running as well. There are subtle differences between the ways I would like these two builds would run, however. Specifically, I'd like the Gated checkin to not produce bug workitems on failure, not associate changesets and workitems on build, not move builds to the drop, and not maintain previous builds. Since builds initiated by Gated checkins are uncommitted changes, these steps seem unnecessary to me, but I would definitely like the CI build to perform these functions.

Unfortunately, there's this NO_CI thing that appears on my changesets after they're committed by the Gated Checkin build, and the CI build is never triggered. I found this thread that seemed to indicate that my DefaultTemplate.xaml should have a "Get Activity" NO_CIOption parameter in there somewhere; however nothing in the configuration file seems to indicate anything of the sort. Neither string is present, and I can't find any reference documentation in the msdn library.

In fact, in the msdn library, there's a page that seems to link to the page I want, however where the link would actually be there's a misplaced, duplicate link to "Control where the build system places your binaries." You can see the identical link directly below it.

Anyhow: how is the NO_CIOption parameter used in the build template files? Where is it placed? Has no anyone else ever wanted to do this before?

Side note: is it bad practice to cross-post between SO and the MSDN forums?

Answer 1

To follow up on this, after looking through the Xaml and using reflector on the Build binaries, I found the NoCIOption property on the SyncWorkspace action. Setting this to false seems to have allowed CI builds to trigger after gated checkins, as well as removing the somewhat unsightly NO_CI checkin comment appendix.

See http://donovanbrown.com/post/How-to-have-CI-builds-run-after-a-Gated-Build for information on how to do this.