Using GitHub repos with my SonarCloud Azure Organization

SonarQube Cloud
, ,
1

I have a SonarCloud organization that’s bound to my Azure DevOps organization - this setup has worked well for years and several projects. Enter GitHub Copilot, and specifically the background agents in GitHub. This is not a feature that’s currently available with Azure Repos, and there are no timelines to enable that. Microsoft’s official guidance is to use a GitHub repo, connect it to your Azure DevOps project, and then use your boards, pipelines, etc. as you’re used to, with the only difference being that the code is hosted in GitHub and PRs happen there (auto-created by the coding agent). Great!

The only problem is SonarCloud’s PR decoration. A PR in GitHub kicks off the build in Azure DevOps, which then fails because SonarCloud can’t find the PR to decorate. There are several possible fixes:

  1. Keep the repo in Azure DevOps: Not ideal as I then can’t use the background coding agents.
  2. Connect my SonarCloud org to Github: Not possible. For whatever reason, I can only connect to one or the other, as has been confirmed in the forum before. Why?!?
  3. Create a second SonarCloud org and connect this one to GitHub. Not ideal, since I then have to pay twice, keep quality gates etc. in sync manually, and my developers have to jump between two different orgs. Side note: signing up for a new org with the same email address removes that email from the original org, and I no longer get notifications. Really??
  4. Move back to SonarQube on-prem, where I can connect to various different types of repos with no issues. Not ideal, for many obvious reasons.
  5. Skip PR decoration. Now my agent won’t get SonarQube feedback, breaking the auto-fix workflow. Also not ideal.
  6. Move all my projects to GitHub and ditch Azure DevOps. Not ideal either.
  7. Ditch SonarCloud and use CodeQL or another code review tool. Not ideal either.
  8. Create a GitHub Action that somehow runs a code scan via the SonarCloud MCP server or API as a workaround instead of using PR decoration. Not sure whether that would actually work, and doesn’t fix the actual issue.

So - since 2. seems to be an artificial limitation and works perfectly fine in the on-prem version, are there any plans to enable this? I’m not the only one asking for it, if similar forum posts are any indication (see below). If not, what did I miss? How can I enable the Microsoft-recommended workflow for software development with AI agents, while continuing to use SonarCloud? Support for this workflow needs to be enabled asap, one way or another.

For reference: this is the workflow I mentioned: https://github.blog/changelog/2025-09-18-assign-azure-boards-work-items-to-copilot-coding-agent-in-public-preview/

Example of similar posts: https://community.sonarsource.com/t/connect-one-organisation-to-both-github-azure-devops-repositories/19728

4

Bump - can somebody at least reply, please? Looks like this has been a feature request since at least 2021: SonarCloud - Bind to BOTH AzureDevOps & GitHub

At this point, going back to on-prem looks like the only viable option. I’d rather avoid that.

5

Hi,

This is queued for the PMs. Hopefully they’ll be along soon.

 
Ann

7

Hello,

We are looking into this & one of the engineers will get back to you as we may have a temporary workaround.

Kind regards,

Shubham

17

Hi Chris,

If all you need is analysis results visible in SonarQube Cloud, you can create a project manually in your existing Azure-bound organization and run the scanner from GitHub Actions by passing the project key and organization key. This won’t produce GitHub PR decoration, checks, or code-scanning feedback, so it will not feed status back into a GitHub/Copilot PR loop. GitHub Automatic Analysis and GitHub PR decoration require a GitHub-bound project.

To get GitHub repository import, PR decoration, and checks, the supported path is a separate GitHub-bound SonarQube Cloud organization. Your Azure Boards and Pipelines can stay as they are; only the SonarQube Cloud organization boundary changes. Existing history from the Azure-bound organization is not migrated.

-Scott

18

Hi Scott,

I appreciate the response, though it comes about 4 months too late. Please read my post again - your suggestions are already addressed in there as not workable. PR decoration is the key to making this agentic development work, so suggesting a solution that does not include it completely misses the point.

A second organization is also not a viable option for the reasons I already outlined above.

This remains an artificial limitation in the Team subscription, and one that really does not need to be there. Your free Community version does this without any issues, as does the Enterprise version. Is it really so hard to enable this for the license tiers in the middle?

19

Hi Chris,

You’re right. I missed the main point of your original post. The manual scanner setup I mentioned would only get results into SonarQube Cloud. It would not give you GitHub PR decoration/checks, which is the part you need for the Copilot/agent workflow. And I understand that creating a second SonarQube Cloud organization is not workable for you either.

So the honest answer is: I don’t have a good workaround for your setup today. Sorry for the delay, and sorry that my previous reply didn’t address the core issue.

I’ll bring this back internally as a product limitation for mixed Azure DevOps/GitHub workflows.

-Scott