Azure DevOps: Resolve Merge Conflicts with Pull Request Extension

Scenario

As Engineers, every one of us would have used some git-supported IDEs like Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, etc to create branches to work on the Task assigned.

During this process, when you would like to merge your branches with long-living branches (ex: develop/main/master), you would have noticed Merged Conflicts (as shown below) and you leveraged the IDE to resolve the Merge Conflicts.

If the conflicts are complex, then the IDEs should be used. However, if the conflicts are very simple then it may be time-consuming to resolve the conflicts in the IDEs.

Today, in this article, we are going to learn a Tip on how to resolve the conflicts directly within the browser using the Azure DevOps marketplace extension called Pull Request Merge Conflicts.

Solution

Azure DevOps Market Place supports 1000+ extensions. In this article, we are going to learn how to install extensions to Azure DevOps Organization and use the same within the Pull Request User Interface.

Installation of the Pull Request Merge Conflicts extension

Navigate to your Organizational settings by clicking on the Organization Settings link as shown below.

Now, as shown below click on the Extensions to view all the extensions available in the current Organization.

You will see all the available extensions. My current view is empty as I haven’t installed anything yet. As shown below click on Browser Marketplace to search for extensions.

You will be navigated to the marketplace where you can search for Pull Request Merge Conflict as shown below.

Select the first item in the search results as shown below.

In the Pull Request Merge Conflicts page, click on the Get it Free button to start the initiation of the download/installation as shown below.

You will be taken to a page where you can choose the Organization in which you want to install the extension as shown below.

If you have appropriate administrator privileges you can install the extension using the Install button. Otherwise, your request will be forwarded to the Administrator for installation of the extension.

Once you click on the Install button, the Pull Request Merge Conflict Extension will be available in your Organization Extensions as shown below.

Once the extension is installed, you can navigate to the Pull Request and you can view a new tab called Conflicts as shown below.

Clicking on the Conflicts button you can see a new page where you can view the conflicts between the source and Target branches as shown below.

That’s it. You can now resolve the conflicts using this page.

Summary

In this article, we have learned how to install a Custom Extension from the Azure DevOps Marketplace and also learned how to resolve the conflicts during the process of the Pull Request.