Artifacts Credential Provider v2.0.0 – Updated Release Details

[embetten]

🚀 Artifacts Credential Provider v2.0.0 – Updated Release Details 🚀

We’re sharing the latest updates for the upcoming v2.0.0 release! The update below reflects the most current changes and timeline since the original announcement #562.

🔧 What’s New In v2.0.0 🔧

• Self-contained by default
  The installation scripts will now default to installing the recently released self-contained binaries, eliminating the need for a pre-installed .NET runtimes on developer and CI machines. This helps support our downstream plugins such as artifacts-keyring and reduces overhead for maintaining pipelines where building .NET projects on a different version than Credential Provider.

  If desired, installation parameters can still be used to fetch assets for specific .NET versions such as .NET 6 / .NET 8. See https://github.com/microsoft/artifacts-credprovider?tab=readme-ov-file#environment-variables for more info.

• Versioned install scripts
  Installation scripts will now be released alongside the published GitHub assets, meaning that pinning a given version with legacy installation parameters (such as adding .NET 3.1 from v1.x) will remain consistent even when those parameters are removed in future updates. This allows us to maintain streamlined installation scripts which maintain a minimal set of configuration parameters.

  There is no change required from users to adopt the new flow, the existing aka.ms links used to run install scripts will be updated to point to the new scripts which fetch and execute a release version's install script.

• Retirement of .NET Core 3.1 and .NET Framework 4.6.1
  As previously announced in Upcoming end of support for .NET Core 3.1 and .NET Framework 4.6.1 #523, support for .NET Core 3.1 and .NET Framework 4.6.1 has been officially retired and will no longer receive support or further bug fixes. Please upgrade to a .NET version that is still supported or the self-contained binaries. For backwards compatibility, if the legacy versions are still required, you can pin the final 1.x release version in your install scripts.

• Dotnet Tool Support
  We are packaging and publishing the artifacts-credprovider as a dotnet tool Microsoft.Artifacts.CredentialProvider.NuGet.Tool to nuget.org. Any users of the dotnet cli 9.0.200 or later will be able to install the package using the dotnet tool install command instead of the install scripts.

• Broker Support for macOS and Linux
  We’ve added MSAL broker integration for macOS and Linux, delivering a more seamless and secure authentication experience across platforms. This enhancement improves token acquisition flows, reduces friction for interactive sign-ins, and aligns with modern identity standards.

• Updated Asset Naming
  We are updating some asset names to improve clarity and consistency. The new naming convention will align with versioned scripts and self-contained binaries.

⚠️ Breaking Changes ⚠️

While we have attempted to minimize the number of customer breaks for this roll out with the install scripts and self-contained versions, this version will break a couple of known scenarios:

• Users of .NET 3.1 and .NET Framework 4.6.1 installations will need to update to a supported .NET version or migrate to the new self-contained binaries (installed by default in 2.0.0 versions of install scripts).
• Any user-maintained installation scripts which require a specific asset name may be affected if self-contained binaries are installed (removal of .Net6 / .Net8 / netfx4.6 from the download asset list).
• There may be some downtime (<1 minute) for install script users when aka.ms links are being pointed to the latest release.
• Any network or proxies with allowlists or custom configurations may need updates to enable the new installcredproviderrelease scripts and api.github.com for SHA integrity checks.

📅 Timeline 📅

The v2.0.0 release has been published and marked as pre-release version. Given no blocking issues are found, we will update 2.0.0 to latest on GitHub after 7 days (1/21/2026). For most users and installation cases, there will be no action required to update to the new version. If you encounter any issues, please report them to https://github.com/microsoft/artifacts-credprovider/issues for triage.

[DrewRhoades]

Subtle requirement here. This version requires:

• .NET Framework 4.8.1 be installed
• .NET 4.8.1 requires a minimum of Windows Server 2022 (in the server line)

My build server happened to be on Windows Server 2019, so this upgrade necessitated an unexpected chain of upgrades. And I didn't even have an option to stay back on the older version because of the hosted assets being renamed. Caused a bit of an afternoon fire drill.

[embetten]

Thank you for the feedback here. We didn’t provide a complete list of pre‑requisites for the frameworks we were moving to for this release, and we apologize for any unintended disruptions or fire drills this may have caused.

I’m curious whether the versioned install scripts would have helped to unblock your scenario. As part of this change, the --Version parameters in both install scripts now fully respect the version you specify both for the install scripts and the assets. Here are a couple of examples for clarity:

iex "& { $(irm https://aka.ms/install-artifacts-credprovider.ps1) } -Version 1.4.1"

and

export AZURE_ARTIFACTS_CREDENTIAL_PROVIDER_VERSION=v1.4.1
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://aka.ms/install-artifacts-credprovider.sh)"

Let us know if any else is not working

[DrewRhoades]

I don't think so. What started all this was the older version of the installcredprovider.ps1 script was failing:

Fetching release https://api.github.com/repos/Microsoft/artifacts-credprovider/releases/latest
InstallZip : Unable to resolve the browser download url from
https://api.github.com/repos/Microsoft/artifacts-credprovider/releases/latest
Error: Unable to find asset Microsoft.NuGet.CredentialProvider.zip from release json object
At C:\Source\Git\Enterprise\Source\installcredprovider.ps1:175 char:1
+ InstallZip
+ ~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,InstallZip

This was because Microsoft.NuGet.CredentialProvider.zip was renamed. That's what started me on the upgrade journey.

[embetten]

We’ve since identified an additional previously‑unknown breaking scenario that affects Alpine Linux (and potentially other environments) when upgrading to v2.0.0.

There is a separate issue with the full details here:
👉 #621
In short, the v2.0.0 install scripts now default to the self‑contained version of the credprovider. On Alpine, running self‑contained .NET apps requires extra system dependencies that may not be present by default.

Current workarounds:

1. Install the Alpine dependencies required for running self‑contained .NET apps (recommended for long‑term compatibility with newer .NET runtimes).
2. Force installation of the .NET 8 non-self‑contained version using:
   ARTIFACTS_CREDENTIAL_PROVIDER_NON_SC or pass -NonSelfContained for PowerShell
3. Pin to the previous default behavior using:
   ARTIFACTS_CREDENTIAL_PROVIDER_VERSION=v1.4.1

We’ll update the docs as we learn more. If you run into additional edge cases, please add them to issue 621 so we can track everything in one place.