Custom Service Endpoint

[mmajcica]

Hi,
is it possible to create a custom service endpoint type as you have done for Azure, Jenikins, etc.
If so, could you point me to an example code? Also could we ship this new endpoint type via the extension?

Thanks
Mario

[omeshp]

yes you can create a custom service endpoint using extensions. To do that you will need to add a new contribution that targets ms.vss-endpoint.endpoint-types. Here is an example of chef endpoint type contribution that uses basic authentication:

"contributions": [
  {
    "id": "custom-chef-endpoint-type",
    "description": "Service Endpoint type for all Chef connections",
    "type": "ms.vss-endpoint.service-endpoint-type",
    "targets": [ "ms.vss-endpoint.endpoint-types" ],
    "properties": {
      "name": "customchef",
      "displayName": "Custom Chef",
      "authenticationSchemes": [
        {
          "type": "ms.vss-endpoint.endpoint-auth-scheme-basic",
          "inputDescriptors": [
            {
              "id": "username",
              "name": "Node Name (Username)",
              "description": "Chef username",
              "inputMode": "textbox",
              "isConfidential": false,
              "validation": {
                "isRequired": true,
                "dataType": "string"
              }
            },
            {
              "id": "password",
              "name": "Client Key",
              "description": "Client key specified in the .pem file",
              "inputMode": "textarea",
              "isConfidential": false,
              "validation": {
                "isRequired": true,
                "dataType": "string"
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      ],
      "helpMarkDown": "Learn More"
    }
  }
]

[omeshp]

For token based authentication, the autheticationSchemes field will look like:

"authenticationSchemes": [
  {
    "type": "ms.vss-endpoint.endpoint-auth-scheme-token",
    "inputDescriptors": [
      {
        "id": "apitoken",
        "name": "API Key",
        "description": "API key for connection",
        "inputMode": "textbox",
        "isConfidential": false,
        "validation": {
          "isRequired": true,
          "dataType": "string"
        }
      }
    ],
    "headers": [
      {
        "name": "Authorization",
        "value": "api_key {{endpoint.apitoken}}"
      }
    ]
  }
]

[mmajcica]

Thank you very much!
That's precisely what I was searching, although I thought it may be that I should somewhere implement ITaskEndpoint interface. The dictionary that this interface exposes, called Data, contains all of the information about the username and password. The password is however passed as a string. Is there a way to have it persisted as a SecureString?

What does isConfidential property on inputDescriptors do?
For the validation, what sort of dataType's do we have at our disposition?

I'll jump right away on it and check how it works.
Mario

[omeshp]

Hi Mario,

All the authentication data belonging to an endpoint(i.e all the fields belonging to authentication scheme) are encrypted and persisted using strongbox service. In memory they are represented as strings, values for which are fetched and unencrypted only when required.

isConfidential false means that input will be visible after typing, if you set it to true that we will mask the input using ******.

For different dataTypes have a look at https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/integrate/extensions/reference/client/api/vss/common/contracts/forminput/inputdatatype

[mmajcica]

Thank you for the detailed answers!

[JoshuaTheMiller]

In case folks come across this Issue first, another Issue exists that discusses consuming Service Connections in a TypeScript extension: #135