Azure Devops + Steady

Azure DevOps Integration for Developer Team Coordination

Your team’s work already lives in Azure DevOps; commits, pull requests, work items, etc. But that activity doesn’t automatically translate into team visibility. Developers waste time manually copying PR links into standup messages. Managers chase down updates across Slack threads, Azure Boards, and repositories. Product stakeholders can’t tell what’s shipping without interrupting engineers.

Steady bridges that gap. Connect Azure DevOps and your development activity automatically flows into context that everyone understands; daily check-ins, sprint summaries, goal updates, and on-demand reports.

How the Azure DevOps Integration Works

Connect Azure DevOps to Steady in 30 seconds and your development activity automatically flows into every part of your team’s coordination workflow.

Smart Check-ins: Commits, PRs, and work items sync with each developer’s daily check-ins automatically. When Sarah pushes code, it appears in her standup. When Marcus merges a PR or updates a work item, it shows up in today’s team update. No manual linking, no copying PR URLs into Slack; Azure DevOps activity attaches to check-ins so everyone sees concrete progress, fully contextualized by human-written summaries.

Goal Stories: Use AI-enhanced templates to quickly draft updates by automatically summarizing Azure DevOps activity however you need it. Instead of manually reviewing repositories and copying PR links, prompt the AI: “Summarize what was merged in Azure DevOps last week, organized into 3-5 coherent themes.” The AI synthesizes your commits, PRs, and work items into high-level narratives that show strategic progress, not just technical activity. Turn raw Azure DevOps data into stakeholder-ready goal updates in seconds.

Echoes: Set up automated reports that monitor your Azure DevOps data on whatever schedule you need. Configure an Echo to summarize merged PRs every Friday, track repository activity monthly, or report on feature delivery quarterly. Echoes delivers tailored Azure DevOps summaries automatically; no more manually generating the same reports week after week.

Insights: Azure DevOps activity flows into Steady’s realtime analytics, giving you visibility into development patterns over time. The Activity report tracks total activity from Azure DevOps and all your integrated tools, filterable by team, people, or date range. Cross-compare Azure DevOps activity with other Insights reports—like Participation, Intentions Met, or Blockers—to understand holistic trends. Are Azure DevOps commits increasing while check-in participation drops? Is one team coding heavily but reporting more blockers than others? Insights connects the dots across your coordination data.

Key Benefits

Eliminate Status Update Meetings - When commits, PRs, and work items flow into daily check-ins automatically, you don’t need meetings where developers recite what they pushed yesterday. Everyone can see who’s working on what, who’s blocked, and what shipped; all without interrupting anyone’s flow.

Give Non-Technical Stakeholders Visibility - Product managers and executives see exactly what developers are building without learning Git commands or digging through repositories and Azure Boards.

Draft Stakeholder Updates in Seconds - Summarize Azure DevOps activity in seconds with AI-powered templates. Pick your level of detail — high-level overview or commit-by-commit breakdown — and AI transforms PRs, commits, and work items into polished progress reports.

AI-Powered Azure DevOps Reports - Ask Echoes natural language questions about your Azure DevOps data and get fresh answers week after week, automatically. No need for custom scripts, Azure DevOps API queries, or complex filtering.

Reduce Context Switching - Developers stay in their flow. Azure DevOps activity appears in Steady automatically; no need to manually update project management tools.

Use Cases

Async Daily Standups for Distributed Teams - Your developers span San Francisco, London, and Singapore. Instead of a 5am meeting for some, everyone submits check-ins when their day starts. Steady automatically attaches yesterday’s commits, merged PRs, and work item updates—no one types “worked on authentication” because the PRs and work items are right there. The whole team sees concrete progress across time zones without synchronous coordination.

Sprint Planning Prep on Autopilot - Planning next sprint and need to know what actually shipped last sprint? Set up an Echo: “Summarize all Azure DevOps PRs merged in the last two weeks, organized by feature area. Include any PRs still in review.” Schedule it to deliver 30 minutes before your bi-weekly sprint planning meeting. Walk into planning with a complete picture of what shipped, what’s in flight, and what’s blocked; automatically generated from real Azure DevOps data, not manually compiled the night before.

Cross-Team Visibility for Engineering Leadership - You manage three engineering teams working on different parts of the product. Set up an Echo that delivers a weekly summary: “High-level overview of Azure DevOps activity from Backend, Frontend, and Mobile teams.” Every Monday morning you get a digest showing which teams shipped features, which had mostly maintenance work, and where activity was unusually high or low—without asking anyone for status.

Weekly Engineering Updates Without Manual Summaries - Every Friday afternoon you need to summarize what engineering shipped. Instead of reviewing dozens of merged PRs manually, set up an Echo: “List all Azure DevOps PRs merged this week, organized by project.” It delivers automatically every Friday at 3pm. Copy the summary into your stakeholder email and you’re done in two minutes.

Installation

To set up the Azure Devops integration, go to Account Settings -> Integrations and connect to Azure Devops. Read the documentation for more information.

About Azure Devops

Azure DevOps is Microsoft's comprehensive suite of development tools that provides version control, project management, build/release pipelines, and testing capabilities for software teams. It combines Azure Repos for Git repositories, Azure Boards for agile planning, Azure Pipelines for CI/CD automation, and Azure Test Plans for quality assurance in a unified platform that supports any language, platform, or cloud.

Frequently asked questions

How does the Azure DevOps integration work with daily standups?

When you connect Azure DevOps to Steady, each developer’s commits and PRs automatically appear in their daily check-in. Team members answer standup questions via Slack, web, or mobile, and Steady attaches their Azure DevOps activity automatically; no manual copy-pasting of PR links or commit messages required.

Can I use Azure DevOps with Microsoft Teams for async standups?

Yes. Steady connects Azure DevOps, Microsoft Teams, and other tools together. Team members get reminders to check-in via in Teams, and Steady automatically includes their Azure DevOps commits, PRs, and work items in those check-in responses. The entire team sees the updates in a unified feed, with Azure DevOps activity providing concrete evidence of progress.

What Azure DevOps data appears in Steady?

Steady syncs commits, pull requests, work items, and repository activity from Azure Repos and Azure Boards. You control which projects to sync during setup. Azure DevOps activity appears in Smart Check-ins automatically, flows into Insights reports for trend analysis, and can be summarized using AI-enhanced templates in Goal Stories or scheduled Echoes reports.

Do developers need to do anything after Azure DevOps is connected?

No. Once an admin connects Azure DevOps at the organization level, all team members’ code activity and work items automatically sync to their check-ins. Developers don’t need to authenticate individually or change their workflow—just keep pushing code and updating work items normally and it appears in Steady automatically.