NuGet Extensions

This is a monorepo for NuGet Extensions and contains the following packages:

VSCode

Lib

CLI

Status

Alpha version, approaching MVP. See issues for specifics.

What and Why

This is primarily npm link for the C# ecosystem. One thing that the JS community got right with package development was enabling a simple mechanism to develop both a consuming and dependent package in context. .NET development in regards to package management tooling has lagged behind JS equivalents, but has also come a long way in recent history. .NET Core brings significant improvements to the PM systems, along with new innovations, like SourceLink. Today, it is still a challenge to develop multiple projects simultaneously when the dependencies are consumed via NuGet; especially when the projects are a mix of .NET Core, full .NET, packages.config, and PackageReference. This project aims to provide a layer of additional tooling to act as a shim while the native .NET PM system gains ground.

Goals

Currently, in order to iterate on a package dependency in the context of it's consumer you may need to do one or all of the following:

• Alter the build/package process in order to generate a package or .dll that can be used in a development environment.
• Alter the consumer project file to specify a different version, location, or style of reference (for every project).
• Alter the consumer environment to pull/install/get your locally built package.
• Manually copy/move files and clear any number of package caches.

The goal of this project is to eliminate the manual parts of this process in a generic way, so you, as a developer, don't need to jump through these hoops, which can be quite tedious. The approach is one that works within the confines of the system, in a way that can be automated, controlled, and switched on and off without effort or time.

Usage Strategy

The VSCode extension is available to provide a simple UI and built-in commands to perform the required steps. The CLI is available for easy automation of these steps, if desired.

The basic idea is:

• Build the dependent package. Include symbols and build in Debug if debugging is desired.
• Register the package. The VSCode extension will detect any NuGet packages in the workspace, and prompt. This step adds an entry into a central repository for what packages are available.
• Link to the registered package. The VSCode extension will prompt for a solution or csproj file as input, and cross-check the references against the available packages.
• Build the consumer. You're done.

Furthermore:

• Watch is available to watch for package changes (when you rebuild the dependent package), and will ensure that the latest build is always available to your consumer. If desired, Watch can also be configured so that a rebuild of the consumer is not required.

To clean up:

• Unlink is available.
• Unregister is available.
• Stop watching is available.

Specifics

See the specific project's readme for specifics.

VSCode CLI Lib

License

MIT