Code merges in Visual Studio changeset cleanup

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Posted on by Celeste

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We use daily pipelines running from a Dev branch to build code based on the day’s check ins.

We have a Main branch to which changesets are merged from the Dev branch, done in Visual Studio using Source Control Explorer (TFVC, not Git).

I’ve recently deployed an ISV from a vendor that was not properly checked. The packages received from the vendors was build on development environments (not pipelines). I don’t have control over the vendors processes due to politics on the project.

This means that I checked in multiple deletions and deployments of the ISV to the Dev branch, which means multiple changesets. These changesets will never get merged to higher branches.
Is there any way to cleanup unnecessary changesets which will never be merged, from the list of available changesets when merging from Dev to Main branches?

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Dynamics 365 general

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Martin Dráb 239,660 Most Valuable Professional on at

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You can use tf merge /discard on command line (you can easily find more details about it on internet, e.g. How To Remove A Merge Candidate From The Merge Tool in Visual Studio). I sometimes used it in the past. It's good to fix these things ASAP, before it becomes a mess. An alternative is actually merging everything (all the deletions etc.), although you're really interested just in the final state.

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Sahan Hasitha 2,683 on at

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hi

In your setup with TFVC, daily builds are triggered from the Dev branch, and changes are merged into Main via Source Control Explorer. After deploying an ISV package built outside your pipelines, several unwanted deletions and deployments were checked into Dev, resulting in multiple changesets that should never be merged to higher branches. Unfortunately, TFVC does not allow permanent deletion of changesets once committed. However, you can prevent them from appearing in merges by performing a baseless merge or using cherry-pick merges to only bring the valid changesets forward. Another option is to mark the unwanted changesets as merged without actually merging their content, ensuring they no longer appear in the pending merge list. This way, you avoid polluting your Main branch while keeping the Dev history intact.

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Nimsara Jayathilaka. 5,128 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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To clean up unnecessary changesets in TFVC so they don’t appear as merge candidates from Dev to Main branch:

Use the command: tf merge /discard /version:C123~C130 DevBranch MainBranch /recursive to discard changesets 123 to 130 from merge candidates.

This updates merge history without applying the changes.

Check in the pending merge to finalize the discard.

This prevents those changesets from appearing in merge lists.

No changeset deletion is possible, discard is the standard cleanup method.

This approach effectively removes unwanted changesets from merge consideration.

Thanks

Nimsara

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