Providers Overview

VcsManager ships one provider package for each supported system. All providers implement IVcsProvider and return the same core records and exceptions.

Available providers

Provider	Package	Authentication	Native address
GitHub	`VcsManager.GitHub`	Personal access token	`{owner}/{name}`
GitLab	`VcsManager.GitLab`	Personal access token	`{owner}/{project}/{name}` or `{owner}/{name}`
Azure DevOps	`VcsManager.AzureDevOps`	Personal access token	`{organization}/{project}/{name}`
Gitea	`VcsManager.Gitea`	Access token	`{owner}/{name}`

Capability summary

Capability	GitHub	GitLab	Azure DevOps	Gitea
Create repository	Yes	Yes	Conditional	Yes
Delete repository	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
List repositories	Yes	Yes	Conditional	Yes
Create pull request	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Merge pull request	Conditional	Conditional	Conditional	Conditional
Close pull request	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

"Conditional" means the operation is available, but repository settings, branch policies, required checks, or resource state can prevent it. The provider capability matrix gives the exact conditions.

Register a provider

Each provider has a fluent extension method:

using VcsManager.Builder;

var builder = new VcsProviderBuilder();

builder.WithGitHub();       // provider name "github"
builder.WithGitLab();       // provider name "gitlab"
builder.WithAzureDevOps();  // provider name "azuredevops"
builder.WithGitea();        // provider name "gitea"

The provider name is used by VCS_PROVIDER and by the YAML provider block. Matching is case-insensitive.

Repository addressing

RepositoryRef is the only repository identity:

var repository = new RepositoryRef
{
    Owner = "my-org",
    Project = "my-project",
    Name = "payments-api",
};

Provider	`Owner`	`Project`	`Name`
GitHub	User or organization	Unsupported	Repository
GitLab	Top-level namespace	Optional subgroup path	Project path
Azure DevOps	Organization, defaulting to `OrganizationUrl`	Team project, defaulting to `DefaultProject`	Repository
Gitea	User or organization, defaulting to `DefaultOwner`	Unsupported	Repository

A provider rejects a ref that omits a required field and a ref that sets a field the provider cannot express. For example, GitHub rejects Project instead of ignoring it.

Choose a provider

GitHub

Use GitHub when your repositories live on GitHub.com or GitHub Enterprise Server. The provider uses Octokit behind an internal client. It supports classic and fine-grained personal access tokens.

GitLab

Use GitLab when your projects live on GitLab.com or a self-managed GitLab. GitLab merge requests are returned as PullRequest; the project IID is PullRequest.Number. The provider uses REST API v4.

Azure DevOps

Use Azure DevOps when your repositories live in Azure DevOps Services. The provider uses the official Microsoft.TeamFoundationServer.Client SDK with REST API 7.1 as a fallback. A team project is required for most repository operations.

Gitea

Use Gitea when you run a self-hosted Gitea instance. The base URL is required. Gitea has no project or subgroup level, and it has no internal repository visibility. The page size is capped at 50.

Provider behavior

The provider pages document configuration keys, token scopes, addressing, listing scope, merge methods, close behavior, and error mapping:

Available providers​

Capability summary​

Register a provider​

Repository addressing​

Choose a provider​

GitHub​

GitLab​

Azure DevOps​

Gitea​

Provider behavior​