Create VSTS project with only 1 member and remove team complexty

Question

I am a indie developer mainly work with UWP apps. and I want to use Visual Studio Team Services to host my code and track my progress.

Because I am a single developer and I am not working in a team so I am the project manager, I am the CEO, I am the developer, tester, and basically I have all the roles so I don't need a team as I am an independent developer.

Problem

I am trying to use VSTS I have created projects on it, I prefer to use Git for my version control so looks fine, the problem I have with default VSTS projects, is that they are obviously configured for teams, which adds a lot of unwanted complexity (for me) so any feature related to team work is basically an extra for me, and all the work items and iterations etc stuff have team work heavily involved in them, which just confuses me.

What I want

So basically what I am trying to say here, can I create a simpler version of project on VSTS, without any of the team features? basically I just need a repository where I can host my code (can't do it on Github because I don't have a premium account there). I want to use VSTS as it integrates great with Visual Studio. So I want a VSTS project, preferably with all the Git system, which I know well and comfortable with, but without any complexity with team support. Also the build, test and continuous integration are extras, but I don't mind them because I might learn them and may use them in future in my project.

So is there any setting in the project where I can turn off all the team stuff? and just make my project simple, straightforward and optimized for one developer (me)? If I use a process other than agile will that make it simpler?

Answer 1

You can't, and choosing a process template other than Agile won't change it.

If you don't need a feature, you can just not use it. There's nothing that prevents you from completely ignoring everything except the "Code" section.

If you want to use work item tracking and don't want to schedule iterations, then don't schedule iterations -- track everything in the backlog.

Answer 2

Based on your situation, for now, it seems you only want to hosted your git repo to a free private site which others without permission won't get and view your git repo.

While you are hosting your git repo in VSTS (which feature is much more than manage source code), and want to hide other features of VSTS. But there is no such settings to turn off other features except Version Control System.

So I will suggest you to hosted your git repo in Bitbucket currently since you can choose it as private for free too.

Detail steps to migrate your Git repo to bitbucket as below:

Sign up -> create a private git repo -> copy the repo URL -> execute below commands in local repo (if there has not local repo, clone from VSTS):

# In the local repo
git remote rm origin
git remote add origin <bitbucket repo URL> 
git push origin --all

Now all the branches and commit histories are pushed into your bitbicket repo.

And when you are ready to use other features of VSTS in future, you can import/push the git repo to VSTS again in future .