VS 2013 + Git + Visual Studio Online + multiple Repos in one project

Question

I have VS 2013 installed and linked up to a project in Visual Studio Team Services using git. It's all working beautifully.

Now i want to add another solution to the Team Services project in a separate repo. Team Services allows you to create multiple repos under one project but VS 2013 will only show Team Services work items about the repo which matches the project.

I could create multiple projects in Team Services, but i wanted to have one project with multiple repos in it. We can work with the additional repos within the project but linking them to work items is so painful no one will do it.

Are there any third party tool which will help my developers link commits to work items for the additional repos within the project?

Also as a side question does anyone know of any settings to require someone to link the commit to a work item?

Thank you

Answer 1

Swapping between different Repo's in VS2013 should be nothing more than a click on the "Connect" icon at the top of Team Explorer:

If Repos do not appear here, click Refresh.

As you can see in my example, I have 3 git repos and 2 team projects (Test Agile is TFVC).

The second on "D" is my current one, and I only need to click "C" or "T" to change. The section in the middle is unrelated, but at the bottom you can also see my other local repos, not part of VS Team Services.

As for requiring a linked work item on check in, this is not possible in Git with Team Services, it is with TFVC. But think about how Git works, you are supposed to make many small local commits before you "push". People can re-base and squash commits before pushing for example, what would you do then?

Answer 2

Work items in Team Explorer are shown for the Team Project you are connected to, not the git repository that is currently 'active'.

Also work items are unique across a Team Project Collection so it's possible to link a commit to any work item in any team project you have access to.

To link a commit to a work item, just prefix the work item id with a hash in the commit message (e.g. #1234). Once you push to the Team Services git repository it will scan the commit message and establish the link.

If you forget to mention the work item number, you can always link it up manually via the web interface See How to link a work load item with a commited change? for more information.