Retrieving Azure DevOps Pull Requests for Entire Organization with PowerShell

In this 99% LLM generated post, I’ll walk you through a PowerShell script that retrieves pull requests (PRs) descriptions from your Azure DevOps organization.

The script targets scenarios where you want to list all PRs and filter them based on criteria such as creation date and the author’s display name (for example, matching initials or part of a full name). That is, it gets all pull requests for a project since a given date, filters them, and accumulates all to finally display them sorted by creation date.

Why Use This Script?

  • Retrieves all projects in your organization.
  • Pulls all PRs per project since a given date using the Azure DevOps REST API and pagination.
  • Filters PRs by checking the createdBy.displayName field.
  • Adds the project name to the PR object for easier reporting.
  • Outputs the results in a neatly formatted table.

Prerequisites

  • Azure DevOps Personal Access Token (PAT): You need a PAT with at least Code (read) permissions. Generate one from your Azure DevOps account settings.
  • PowerShell Environment: This script uses basic PowerShell commands available on modern Windows systems.
  • Basic Understanding of REST APIs: Familiarity with REST API concepts can help in customizing the script further.

The Script

Below is the complete PowerShell script. Update the variable values (e.g., organization name, PAT, author initials, full name) to match your environment.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52

# Define variables
$organization = "your-org-name"          # Replace with your Azure DevOps organization name
$personalAccessToken = "your-pat-token"  # Replace with your Azure DevOps PAT
$top = 400                               # Number of PRs to retrieve per request
$authorInitials = "your-initials"        # Substring to match (e.g., initials)
$fullName = "your-name"                  # Full name to match
$lastYearDate = (Get-Date).AddYears(-1).ToString("yyyy-MM-ddTHH:mm:ssZ")

# Encode PAT for authentication
$base64AuthInfo = [Convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes(":$personalAccessToken"))

# Function to retrieve PRs for a given project
function Get-PullRequests {
    param (
        [string]$projectName
    )
    $skip = 0
    $prs = @()
    do {
        # Construct the API URL with time range filters
        $prUrl = "https://dev.azure.com/$organization/$projectName/_apis/git/pullrequests?searchCriteria.status=all&`$top=$top&`$skip=$skip&searchCriteria.minTime=$lastYearDate&searchCriteria.queryTimeRangeType=Created&api-version=7.1"
        $response = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $prUrl -Headers @{Authorization=("Basic {0}" -f $base64AuthInfo)} -Method Get
        $prs += $response.value
        $skip += $top
    } while ($response.value.Count -eq $top)  # Continue if the number of PRs retrieved equals $top
    return $prs
}

# Get all projects in the organization
$projectsUrl = "https://dev.azure.com/$organization/_apis/projects?api-version=7.1-preview.4"
$projects = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $projectsUrl -Headers @{Authorization=("Basic {0}" -f $base64AuthInfo)} -Method Get

$allPullRequests = @()

foreach ($project in $projects.value) {
    $projectName = $project.name
    $prs = Get-PullRequests -projectName $projectName

    $filteredPRs = $prs | Where-Object {
        ( $_.createdBy.displayName -match $authorInitials -or $_.createdBy.displayName -match $fullName )
    } | ForEach-Object {
        # Manually add the project name (since it's not part of the PR object)
        $_ | Add-Member -NotePropertyName "Project" -NotePropertyValue $projectName -PassThru
    }
    $allPullRequests += $filteredPRs
}

# Sort the results by creationDate and output desired columns
$allPullRequests |
    Sort-Object creationDate |
    Select-Object Project, @{Name="Repository"; Expression={ $_.repository.name }}, pullRequestId, title, creationDate, status |
    Format-Table -AutoSize

I have verified this script works for my needs, but use at your own peril. Output may look something like.

1
2
3
4
5
6

Project     Repository pullRequestId title           creationDate    status
-------     ---------- ------------- -----           ------------    ------
ProjectName       repo         4001 PR title 2024-01-01T11:00:00 completed
ProjectName       repo         4002 PR title 2024-01-02T12:00:00 completed
ProjectName       repo         4003 PR title 2024-01-03T13:00:00 completed
ProjectName       repo         4004 PR title 2024-01-04T14:00:00 completed

That’s all!

2025.03.18