How to apply for unlimited CI/CD for open source projects

Question

How to apply for unlimited CI/CD for open source projects

Miron van der Kolk 0

I'm maintaining a scientific open source project for a research collaboration. We used to have azure pipelines set up for our windows ci/cd via a partner university, but they left the collaboration and deleted their azure organisation.

I have created a new organization for our project and based on this blog post and the sign up button User's image

claiming "Parallel jobs with unlimited minutes per month" I expected this to work, but I don't know how to actually apply for this?

Every time I run the pipeline, I get the following error:

##[error]No hosted parallelism has been purchased or granted. To request a free parallelism grant, please fill out the following form https://aka.ms/azpipelines-parallelism-request

I did fill out the form, but it didn't have a field to specify I'm running an open source project or something. Anyone have a similar experience?

Pravallika KV 18,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-01T20:15:59.7+00:00
Hi @Miron van der Kolk ,

Check below steps:

Make sure your project is Public

In Azure DevOps, go to Organization > Project Settings > Overview.

Under “Visibility,” confirm your project is set to Public. Only public projects are eligible for the unlimited Microsoft-hosted grant.

Submit the Parallelism Request form

Visit https://aka.ms/azpipelines-parallelism-request

In the description box:

Paste the URL to your public Azure DevOps project

Explain that this is an open-source, academic/scientific research repo and you’re requesting the unlimited Microsoft-hosted CI/CD grant

Submit and note the date.

Wait for approval (4–5 business days)

Once approved, you’ll see your free “Microsoft-hosted parallel jobs” count bump up under Organization Settings > Parallel jobs.

If you’ve waited a week with no response, reply back here with:

The public project URL

The submission date of your form

A screenshot of Organization Settings > Parallel jobs

As a fallback, you can always run self-hosted agents (unlimited minutes) on your own VMs or on a university-hosted VM scale set.

References:

Blog announcing unlimited open-source CI/CD

How to request free parallelism on new orgs

Azure DevOps Services parallel jobs overview & purchasing
Miron van der Kolk 0 Reputation points

2026-04-02T07:29:23.5333333+00:00

Hello @Pravallika KV , thank you for the reply.

I can not set my projects to public, because my the code for our project is hosted on gitlab, not on github. This is the menu I'm presented with.
Miron van der Kolk 0 Reputation points

2026-04-02T07:30:17.0033333+00:00

These are the current parallel jobs settings:
Pravallika KV 18,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-04T00:13:27.8333333+00:00

Hi @Miron van der Kolk ,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

The error occurs because your Azure DevOps project is set to private, and free Microsoft-hosted CI for open-source projects is not automatically enabled in that case.

Even if your code is publicly available on GitLab, Azure DevOps does not detect or trust that as “open source” unless the Azure project itself is public or you’ve been explicitly approved. That’s why you’re seeing zero hosted parallel jobs and the pipeline fails.

To fix this, you either need to wait for or resubmit the parallelism request and clearly state that your project is open source, or use a self-hosted agent, which you already have available and can run your pipelines without needing approval.

Hope this helps!

If the resolution was helpful, kindly take a moment to click on and click on Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Pravallika KV 18,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-06T04:18:43.9666667+00:00

@Miron van der Kolk ,Following up to see if the provided answer was helpful. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer =>Yes, and upvote it. If you have any further queries do let us know.
Miron van der Kolk 0 Reputation points

2026-04-15T07:43:05.0366667+00:00

For everyone reading this here, I'll just post a reply I got via email from support (after a very lengthy back and forth)

We understand that you created a new Azure DevOps organization and attempted to create a public project after mirroring your repository to GitHub. Based on the screenshot you provided, you are seeing only the Private visibility option when creating a project. Public project creation is no longer available for newly created Azure DevOps organizations. This is a recent platform change. Newly created Azure DevOps organizations no longer provide the option to create public projects. As a result: Only the Private visibility option is available. The link “Try GitHub” redirects you to GitHub.com, as GitHub is now the recommended platform for hosting public open‑source projects Additionally, only organizations with the Allow public project policy already enabled can create projects or change the visibility of a project to public. The policy is no longer available to organizations that aren't using it already. For new Azure DevOps organizations, the ability to create public projects has been deprecated and is no longer available, which is why your organization shows only the private option, even after linking to GitHub. Because public projects can no longer be created in new organizations: • The open‑source free CI/CD entitlement (free Microsoft‑hosted parallel jobs) cannot be applied.

This seems to be based on this page in the documentation:

Only organizations with the Allow public project policy already enabled can create projects or change the visibility of a project to public. The policy is no longer available to organizations that aren't using it already. Microsoft recommends using GitHub for all your public project needs.However the form for applying for it is still online and mentioned in this page (emphasis mine):

The free grant of parallel jobs for public projects and for certain private projects in new organizations is temporarily disabled. However, you can request this grant by submitting a request. Existing organizations and projects aren't affected. It can take several business days to process your free tier requests. During certain time periods, processing times might be longer.

Notice it mentions 'certain private projects'. I did submit this form, but I haven't received any reply for two weeks. Also the information is completely contradictory, because 'public projects in new organizations' simply cannot be created.

So if you are coming here trying to try the same, I would advise to simply give up, or somehow manage to get a microsoft support agent on the phone. I am about 95% certain that most of the responses I got via the email support and also in this thread are mostly AI generated from these documentation pages, no one seemed to be able to see if my request was received and no one was actually confident whether what I wanted was possible at all.

1 answer

Your answer

Pravallika KV 18,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-01T20:15:59.7+00:00

Hi @Miron van der Kolk ,

Check below steps:

Make sure your project is Public

In Azure DevOps, go to Organization > Project Settings > Overview.

Under “Visibility,” confirm your project is set to Public. Only public projects are eligible for the unlimited Microsoft-hosted grant.

Submit the Parallelism Request form

Visit https://aka.ms/azpipelines-parallelism-request

In the description box:

Paste the URL to your public Azure DevOps project

Explain that this is an open-source, academic/scientific research repo and you’re requesting the unlimited Microsoft-hosted CI/CD grant

Submit and note the date.

Wait for approval (4–5 business days)

Once approved, you’ll see your free “Microsoft-hosted parallel jobs” count bump up under Organization Settings > Parallel jobs.

If you’ve waited a week with no response, reply back here with:

The public project URL

The submission date of your form

A screenshot of Organization Settings > Parallel jobs

As a fallback, you can always run self-hosted agents (unlimited minutes) on your own VMs or on a university-hosted VM scale set.

References:

Blog announcing unlimited open-source CI/CD

How to request free parallelism on new orgs

Azure DevOps Services parallel jobs overview & purchasing
Miron van der Kolk 0 Reputation points

2026-04-02T07:29:23.5333333+00:00

Hello @Pravallika KV , thank you for the reply.

I can not set my projects to public, because my the code for our project is hosted on gitlab, not on github. This is the menu I'm presented with.
Miron van der Kolk 0 Reputation points

2026-04-02T07:30:17.0033333+00:00

These are the current parallel jobs settings:
Pravallika KV 18,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-04T00:13:27.8333333+00:00

Hi @Miron van der Kolk ,

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

The error occurs because your Azure DevOps project is set to private, and free Microsoft-hosted CI for open-source projects is not automatically enabled in that case.

Even if your code is publicly available on GitLab, Azure DevOps does not detect or trust that as “open source” unless the Azure project itself is public or you’ve been explicitly approved. That’s why you’re seeing zero hosted parallel jobs and the pipeline fails.

To fix this, you either need to wait for or resubmit the parallelism request and clearly state that your project is open source, or use a self-hosted agent, which you already have available and can run your pipelines without needing approval.

Hope this helps!

If the resolution was helpful, kindly take a moment to click on and click on Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Pravallika KV 18,850 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-06T04:18:43.9666667+00:00

@Miron van der Kolk ,Following up to see if the provided answer was helpful. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer =>Yes, and upvote it. If you have any further queries do let us know.

Answer 1

For new Azure DevOps organizations, the free parallel jobs for Azure Pipelines (including the open‑source “unlimited minutes” offer on Microsoft‑hosted agents) are no longer enabled automatically. The error message and the link in it describe the current process.

To get hosted parallelism for the new organization:

Go to the URL shown in the error message: https://aka.ms/azpipelines-parallelism-request.
Submit the request for a free grant of parallel jobs for the organization.
Wait for the request to be processed; it can take several business days before the grant is applied.

Until the request is approved, Microsoft‑hosted pipelines will fail with the No hosted parallelism has been purchased or granted error.

Once the grant is applied, the organization will have free Microsoft‑hosted parallel jobs according to the open‑source/private project rules. If the free grant is not sufficient, additional parallel jobs can be purchased as described in the Azure Pipelines pricing documentation.

References: