Mirror GitHub Repository to Azure DevOps Repos via Pipeline

Create a PAT in Azure DevOps

1. Azure DevOps → top right User Settings → Personal Access Tokens
2. Click New Token:
   • Name: mirror-pat
   • Scope: Code → Read & Write
3. Copy the generated token

Step — Add PAT as a Secret Variable in the Pipeline

1. Azure DevOps → Pipelines → select your pipeline → Edit
2. Click Variables → New variable:
   • Name: AZURE_PAT
   • Value: paste your PAT
   • Check: Keep this value secret
3. Save

Step — Add azure-pipelines.yml to your GitHub repo
Example configuration:

trigger:
  branches:
    include:
      - main

pool:
  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'

steps:
- checkout: self
  persistCredentials: true

- script: |
    git push --force https://$(AZURE_PAT)@://azure.com<ORG>/<PROJECT>/_git/<REPO> HEAD:main
  displayName: 'Mirror to Azure Repos'

Replace <ORG>, <PROJECT>, and <REPO> with your specific values.

How it works

1. GitHub repo (source): Pushing to main triggers the pipeline.
2. Azure Pipelines: Clones the GitHub repo and uses git push --force to copy commits.
3. Azure Repos (mirror): Receives the exact copy of the repository.

• GitHub is the source of truth.
• Azure Repos acts as a read-only mirror.

Troubleshooting

• Authentication failed: Usually caused by an incorrect $(AZURE_PAT) variable.
• Rejected push: Ensure the --force flag is included in the git push command.
• Command not found: Often a syntax error in the YAML script block.

Notes

• --force is only safe if no one is pushing changes directly to Azure Repos.
• The only URL required is the destination Azure Repos URL.