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).