GitPull Clean repository not working with long paths

Question

Hi! 
I'm, yet again, fighting against the path length limitation on Windows. For our C# TFS VC projects we were adding a custom CoreCleanAll target on the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets to use robocopy to remove the solution folder, which worked OK.
Now, we are using a git repo with a nodejs code base. The project is built with a very basic msbuild project file, which just runs a couple of gulp tasks on Build.
The build fails because it's unable to remove the git repository after a build, since the node_modules paths installed by npm are too long.
It seems the removal is performed by the GitPull activity on the default build process template. Is there any way we can hook to perform the cleanup ourselves so we can use robocopy to remove the folder?
Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm not actually using Visual Studio, but the server has 2010 & 2013 installed. TFS 2013.
The default git build template is the one doing the removal before building:
I have now set those to False, since otherwise, the build fails when an agent that has already built the project on the past tries to build it again, since it's unable to remove the folder because it contains a node_modules folder (created
during build) which exceeds Windows path length limit.
With False the build works, but of course I do want to clean the repository before each build.
On a TFS VC project where we have a similar issue, we override the CoreCleanAll target where we create an empty temporary folder and use robocopy /PURGE option to delete the actual folder, by copying the empty folder over the exiting one (a very ugly workaround,
but not too many options really...).
In this case, we are using a very basic (almost empty) project file just to be able to build the project by running a couple of commands on the Build target (npm & gulp), so there' no CoreCleanAll target there (and I'm not sure that those definitions
are used when using a git repo either). I guess we could execute something after building, but I would prefer the agent to be able to remove the folder, no matter what, just in case the build fails or any other problem.
The error stack trace is:
Exception Message: The directory is not empty.
 (type IOException)
Exception Stack Trace:    at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32 errorCode, String maybeFullPath)
   at System.IO.Directory.DeleteHelper(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive, Boolean throwOnTopLevelDirectoryNotFound)
   at System.IO.Directory.Delete(String fullPath, String userPath, Boolean recursive, Boolean checkHost)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectory(String path, Boolean recursive)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectoryInternal(String path)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common.FileSpec.DeleteDirectory(String path, Boolean recursive)
   at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.Activities.DeleteDirectory.Execute(CodeActivityContext context)
   at System.Activities.CodeActivity.InternalExecute(ActivityInstance instance, ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager)
   at System.Activities.Runtime.ActivityExecutor.ExecuteActivityWorkItem.ExecuteBody(ActivityExecutor executor, BookmarkManager bookmarkManager, Location resultLocation)
Thanks!