How to Create and Use Service Connections in Azure Pipelines

A service connection stores credentials for an external service so tasks can authenticate without hardcoded secrets.

Create the connection under Project Settings > Service connections, then reference it by name from tasks (e.g. azureSubscription, containerRegistry).

Reference an Azure service connection

The AzureCLI task uses the named connection to authenticate against the subscription.

steps:
  - task: AzureCLI@2
    inputs:
      azureSubscription: 'prod-azure-conn'
      scriptType: bash
      scriptLocation: inlineScript
      inlineScript: az webapp list -o table

Gotchas

• Prefer a workload identity / federated service connection over a long-lived secret-based one.
• Service connections are project-scoped by default; share them across projects explicitly if needed.
• A connection can require approval on first use by a new pipeline - grant access in its security settings.

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