How to Deploy a NodeJs App to Ubuntu Virtual Machine with Azure DevOps Pipelines

The pre-configuration steps that are required to ensure your server is ready to accept the NodeJs app files and to ensure Azure DevOps can connect to the server are:

Set up an environment in your Azure DevOps project
Create an SSH Connection Authorisation in Azure DevOps
Create the target folder on the Ubuntu server
Install NodeJs on the Ubuntu server
Install pm2 globally on the Ubuntu server

The essential steps of this deployment pipeline are:

Fetch the app files from the selected git repo (GitHub, Bitbucket etc)
Use the pre-built CopyFilesOverSSH task from Azure DevOps
Exclude the node_modules and git related files
SSH into the Ubuntu server
Run the NPM scripts (Test, Build)
Start the app using PM2

trigger:
- main

variables:
  # Azure Resource Manager connection created during pipeline creation
  azureSubscription: '${Your Azure Subscription Name}'
  # Agent VM image name
  vmImageName: 'ubuntu-latest'

  environmentName: '${Azure DevOps Environment Name}'

pool:
  vmImage: $(vmImageName)

stages:
- stage: Build
  displayName: Build stage
  jobs:  
  - job: Build
    displayName: Build
    steps:
    - task: CopyFilesOverSSH@0
      inputs:
        sshEndpoint: '${ssh-connection-name}'
        sourceFolder: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
        contents: |
          **
          !node_modules/**
          !.git/**
        targetFolder: '/home/${Ubuntu-Server-Username}/${nodejs-app-folder}'
        cleanTargetFolder: true
        cleanHiddenFilesInTarget: false
        readyTimeout: '20000'
    - task: SSH@0
      inputs:
        sshEndpoint: '${ssh-connection-name}'
        runOptions: 'inline'
        inline: |
          cd ${nodejs-app-folder}
          npm install --silent
          npm run build
          pm2 stop ${build-folder-main-js-file}
          pm2 start ${build-folder-main-js-file}
        readyTimeout: '20000'

Improvements that could be implemented to this pipeline are to ensure a npm test script is run and that all tests pass before allowing the build task to execute.