Boardmate writes better work items, breaks down work, plans sprint changes and answers questions from your backlog, wiki, code and Microsoft's documentation. It runs on your own AI provider and never writes anything without your approval.
One extension for the work item form, the Boards hub and the settings pages.
Ask in plain words and the assistant looks it up: work items and their history, saved queries, the project wiki, Markdown docs in your repos and Microsoft's Azure DevOps documentation, with source links under every answer.
Templates on the work item form write descriptions, acceptance criteria, repro steps and summaries. Use the defaults or write your own per project or organization, pinned to wiki pages such as your Definition of Done.
Generate tasks under a story, stories under a feature or test cases for a requirement. Edit the titles, tick the ones you want and create them in bulk with the parent's area and sprint.
A 0–100 spec health score with rule checks, decisions and open questions pulled from the comments, and your project's own review checks. The rule checks are free forever.
"Close sprint 11", "move the open bugs to Sprint 9" or "tag everything untouched for 60 days": the assistant drafts a step-by-step plan, you review it and run it. Nothing is written without your approval.
Find the pull requests waiting for your review, summarize a PR, search the code or show a file. Off by default; a project admin picks the repositories. Boardmate never changes code.
Also included: project context shared with every answer, a prompt library with test runs, image-safe rewrites, per-project field mapping, organization-wide settings and a usage view with CSV export.
Boardmate adds a hub to Boards, a panel to the work item form and a page to Organization settings. Nothing to install on anyone's computer.
"What's left before we can launch order-ahead pickup?" The chat reads the work items with your permissions and answers with live work item cards you can open in one click.
Run a template from the Boardmate panel on any work item. Here it drafts testable acceptance criteria for a story that had none. Review it, then apply it to the field.
An organization admin connects OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic or any OpenAI-compatible service, picks a model and runs the built-in test. The key is encrypted and never shown again.
An organization administrator installs Boardmate for the Azure DevOps organization. The 30-day trial starts at first use.
In Organization settings → Boardmate → AI provider, enter the API key and pick a model. The key is encrypted and never shown again.
Open a work item or the Boards hub. Boardmate suggests; your team reviews and approves every change.
Chat, field suggestions, breakdowns and spec health live where your team already works: the work item form, the Boards hub and the settings pages. No second tool, no copy and paste.
Connect OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as LiteLLM. You keep your model choice and your AI contract; Hardyson runs the rest.
A yearly price per Azure DevOps organization instead of per seat. From roughly ten users it typically costs less than tools priced per user per month.
After the trial, the Insights rule checks, field mapping and usage statistics keep working without a license. Only the AI features need one.
Inherited and custom processes, renamed and custom work item types: Boardmate reads the type categories and lets each project map its own fields.
The backend and its database run in Frankfurt. Work item, wiki and code content is processed in memory and never stored.
Other AI tools for Azure DevOps, as described on each vendor's own website or Marketplace listing in October 2026. Details change; check the vendor's page for current information.
Swipe sideways to see every column.
| Aspect | Boardmate Hardyson | Copilot4DevOps Modern Requirements | ClearSpecs AI Publisher FJANIT | AI Work Item Assistant Microsoft Digital |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs inside Azure DevOps | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, embedded in work items |
| Where the AI comes from | Your own provider and key (OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenAI-compatible) | Not stated; a "Bring Your Own LLM" add-on for custom training is listed | Hosted by the vendor; no API keys needed | Microsoft Foundry |
| Pricing model | Fixed price per organization per year, by active users | Plans by token volume (Lite, Plus, Ultimate) | Free tier and yearly plans; all plans allow unlimited users | Described in a Microsoft Inside Track article, not a priced listing |
| Chat over the backlog | Yes, plus wiki, repo docs, code and pull requests | Yes | Yes | Not stated |
| Generates work items | Yes: child items, test cases and new items from the chat | Generates requirements and test cases | Yes, child item generation | Helps create and refine work items |
All product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
Yearly, by active users in the last 30 days. Every tier includes every feature. Prices exclude VAT.
Up to 25 active users
€590 $690 per organization / year
or $690 in USDor €590 in EUR, excl. VAT
For a team or a small organization getting started with AI in Azure Boards.
Up to 100 active users
€1,490 $1,690 per organization / year
or $1,690 in USDor €1,490 in EUR, excl. VAT
For organizations with several teams and projects.
Unlimited active users
€3,900 $4,500 per organization / year
or $4,500 in USDor €3,900 in EUR, excl. VAT
For large organizations. Pay by card, or by invoice and purchase order on request.
Full pricing details · Non-AI features are free forever.
Azure DevOps Services (the cloud service at dev.azure.com). Azure DevOps Server installed on your own servers is not supported.
Yes. An organization administrator connects your own AI provider once: OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint with streaming and tool calls. The endpoint must be reachable from the internet over HTTPS. AI usage is billed by your provider under your own contract.
No. Work items, wiki pages and code are read with the signed-in user's own Azure DevOps token, processed in memory in Frankfurt and never stored. Boardmate stores only usage metadata (users as pseudonyms), your AI provider settings with the key encrypted, short-lived rate-limit counters and your organization's id and name.
No. Every change is shown as a suggestion card or a plan, and nothing is written to Azure DevOps until a user approves it. Every call runs with that user's own permissions, so the assistant can never see or do more than the user can.
Every organization gets 30 days with everything included from its first use, with no card needed. Afterwards the AI features ask for a license ("Upgrade"); no data or settings are lost, and the non-AI features keep working for free.
A distinct person who used a Boardmate AI feature in your organization during the last 30 days. People who never use Boardmate are not counted.
An organization administrator opens Organization settings → Boardmate → Plan & billing, chooses a tier and currency and selects Upgrade. Checkout is handled by Paddle.com, our reseller and Merchant of Record, which also issues the invoice and handles VAT. Enterprise customers can ask for an invoice and purchase order.
Everything included. No card. Bring your own AI provider.
