Security Alert Review

Security alert review

This skill works in the context of a project and a repository. Both are required to retrieve alerts.

Project selection

• If the user provides a project name in their request (for example, "for Contoso"), use that project directly and do not call core_list_projects.
• If the user does not provide a project name, first ask the user once to provide the project name.
• If the project name is still not provided after asking once, call core_list_projects to return a list of projects the user can choose from.

Repository selection

• If the user provides a repository name, use that repository directly.
• If the user does not specify a repository, ask the user once for the repository name.
• If the repository name is still not provided after asking once, call repo_list_repos_by_project to list available repositories for the user to choose from.

Tools

Use Azure DevOps MCP Server tools for all interactions with Azure DevOps.

• core_list_projects: Get a list of projects in the organization.
• repo_list_repos_by_project: Get a list of repositories for a project.
• advsec_get_alerts: Get Advanced Security alerts for a repository, with optional filters for severity, state, alert type, and confidence level.
• advsec_get_alert_details: Get detailed information about a specific alert by ID.

Rules

1. List alerts for a repository

• When the user asks to list alerts, show security alerts, or review alerts, call advsec_get_alerts for the specified project and repository.
• Apply filters based on the user's request:
• Severity: filter by severities (for example, "show critical alerts" → ["Critical"]).
• State: filter by states (for example, "show active alerts" → ["Active"]).
• Alert type: filter by alertType (for example, "show dependency alerts" → "Dependency"). Valid types are: Dependency, Secret, Code.
• Always include confidenceLevels: ["High", "Other"] on every call to advsec_get_alerts unless the user explicitly requests a specific confidence filter.
• If the user does not specify filters, show all active alerts on the default branch by default (use onlyDefaultBranch: true, states: ["Active"], and confidenceLevels: ["High", "Other"]).
• Show the results in a table.
• If there are no alerts, explicitly state that there are no alerts matching the criteria for this repository.

Example

• "show security alerts for repo MyApp in project Contoso"
• "list critical dependency alerts for repo MyApp"
• "show all active secret alerts in repo MyApp"

2. Get details for a specific alert

• When the user asks about a specific alert (for example, "alert 42" or "tell me about alert 42"), call advsec_get_alert_details with the alert ID, project, and repository.
• Show all available detail fields including the affected file, line number, description, remediation guidance, and rule information.

Example

• "show details for alert 42 in repo MyApp, project Contoso"
• "what is alert 42 about?"

3. Summary view

• When the user asks for a summary or overview of alerts, call advsec_get_alerts (with no severity or type filter, states: ["Active"], and confidenceLevels: ["High", "Other"]) and present a summary grouped by:

1. Alert type (Dependency, Secret, Code) with count.
2. Severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low, Other) with count per type.

• Show the summary as a compact table followed by the total count.
• Note: advsec_get_alerts returns up to 100 alerts by default. If the results include a continuation token, let the user know the summary is based on the first batch of alerts and that additional alerts exist.

Example

• "give me a security overview for repo MyApp"
• "summarize the alerts in repo MyApp for project Contoso"

Display results

When displaying alert lists, show in a table:

• Alert ID
• Title (the alert title or rule name)
• Severity with emoji: 🔴 Critical, 🟠 High, 🟡 Medium, 🟢 Low
• State (Active, Dismissed, Fixed, AutoDismissed)
• Alert type (Dependency, Secret, Code)
• Rule (the rule ID or name)
• First seen formatted as MM/DD/YYYY

When displaying alert details, show:

• All fields from the list view, plus:
• Description — full text of what the alert means.
• File path and line number (if applicable) — where the issue was found.
• Remediation — guidance on how to fix the issue (if available from the alert details).
• Confidence — High or Other (for secret alerts).
• Validity — Active, Inactive, or Unknown (for secret alerts).
• Tool name — the scanning tool that found the alert.

When displaying the summary view, show:

| Alert Type | 🔴 Critical | 🟠 High | 🟡 Medium | 🟢 Low | Other | Total | |------------|------------|---------|----------|--------|-------|-------| | Dependency | count | count | count | count | count | count | | Secret | count | count | count | count | count | count | | Code | count | count | count | count | count | count | | Total | count | count | count | count | count | count |

The Other column includes any alerts with severity values outside Critical/High/Medium/Low (for example, Note, Warning, Error, or Undefined).

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: microsoft
• Source: microsoft/azure-devops-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.