Run link verification before steps that build project

[alzimmermsft]

What does this PR do?

Moves the Link verification check to run before steps that build project files.

GitHub issue number?

[Link to the GitHub issue this PR addresses]

Pre-merge Checklist

• Required for All PRs
  • Read contribution guidelines
  • PR title clearly describes the change
  • Commit history is clean with descriptive messages (cleanup guide)
  • Added comprehensive tests for new/modified functionality
  • Created a changelog entry if the change falls among the following: new feature, bug fix, UI/UX update, breaking change, or updated dependencies. Follow the changelog entry guide
• For MCP tool changes:
  • One tool per PR: This PR adds or modifies only one MCP tool for faster review cycles
  • Updated servers/Azure.Mcp.Server/README.md and/or servers/Fabric.Mcp.Server/README.md documentation
  • Validate README.md changes running the script ./eng/scripts/Process-PackageReadMe.ps1. See Package README
  • For new or modified tool descriptions, ran ToolDescriptionEvaluator and obtained a score of 0.4 or more and a top 3 ranking for all related test prompts
  • For tools with new names, including new tools or renamed tools, update consolidated-tools.json
  • For renamed tools, follow the Tool Rename Checklist and tag the PR with the breaking-change label
  • For new tools associated with Azure services or publicly available tools/APIs/products, add URL to documentation in the PR description
• Extra steps for Azure MCP Server tool changes:
  • Updated command list in servers/Azure.Mcp.Server/docs/azmcp-commands.md
  • Ran ./eng/scripts/Update-AzCommandsMetadata.ps1 to update tool metadata in azmcp-commands.md (required for CI)
  • Updated test prompts in servers/Azure.Mcp.Server/docs/e2eTestPrompts.md
  • 👉 For Community (non-Microsoft team member) PRs:
    • Security review: Reviewed code for security vulnerabilities, malicious code, or suspicious activities before running tests (crypto mining, spam, data exfiltration, etc.)
    • Manual tests run: added comment /azp run mcp - pullrequest - live to run Live Test Pipeline

[jongio]

The block moves cleanly - byte-identical, no accidental changes. One behavioral concern: verify-links doesn't use continueOnError, and the downstream steps (source analysis, AOT, spell check) rely on the default succeeded() condition. So a link failure would now skip those steps entirely. On main today, link failures don't block them because verify-links runs after.

[jongio]

Since this step doesn't have continueOnError: true and the downstream analysis steps use the default succeeded() condition, a link verification failure would now block source analysis, AOT analysis, and spell check from running.

If the intent is faster link feedback without gating the build, consider adding condition: succeededOrFailed() to those downstream steps - same pattern used by the README validation step at the bottom of this file.

Or if you want links to be a hard gate, this is fine as-is - just wanted to flag the change in behavior.