Explore Azure Pipelines and Visual Designer

  • 4 minutes

The Azure Pipelines Visual Designer (also called "Classic Pipelines") provides a graphical interface for creating and managing CI/CD pipelines without writing code.

How Visual Designer works

  1. Connect your repository: Link Azure Pipelines to your Git repository
  2. Design your pipeline: Use drag-and-drop interface to add tasks
  3. Trigger builds: Code pushes automatically start your pipeline
  4. Create artifacts: Build process generates deployable artifacts
  5. Deploy: Release pipeline delivers artifacts to target environments

Screenshot of Flowchart with edit code, push to code repo, build tasks, and test tasks, create artifact, release tasks, and deploy to target.

Visual Designer benefits

Easy for beginners: Perfect for teams new to CI/CD concepts

  • Visual pipeline representation makes workflows clear
  • No need to learn YAML syntax initially
  • Drag-and-drop interface for adding tasks

Integrated experience:

  • Designer and build results share the same interface
  • Easy switching between configuration and monitoring
  • Built-in task library with pre-configured options

Quick setup: Get pipelines running faster with:

  • Template-based pipeline creation
  • GUI-based configuration
  • Visual task dependencies

When to use Visual Designer

Choose Visual Designer if you:

  • Are new to Azure Pipelines
  • Prefer graphical interfaces over code
  • Want quick pipeline setup
  • Need simple, straightforward workflows

Note

Microsoft recommends YAML pipelines for new projects due to version control benefits and modern DevOps practices. However, Visual Designer remains valuable for learning and simpler scenarios.