NETStandard Class Library - How to build/deploy a class library with all dependencies included?

[danmoseley]

@dfarrNTST commented on Thu Apr 06 2017

Sorry if this is the wrong repo to put this in...let me know and we'll move it.

We have plugin applications that we allow developers to write modules/plugin Class Libraries and drop them into certain folders for our host applications to load. In .NET Framework this worked very well because after doing a Build on a class library project, all DLL's (including NuGet package references) were put into the bin folder and we could copy the contents of bin into the plugin/module folder. We must have this same functionality in NETStandard/.Net Core.

We've tried this in a NETStandard Class Library targeting netstandard1.4...we've added a few NuGet packages and another project reference to this class library. After each build, the only files in bin/Debug/netstandard1.4 are the Class Library DLL, the project reference DLL, and the deps json file. The NuGet packages DLL's are not included. We cannot put the NuGet references in the Host application. How do we get ALL DLL references to be put in the bin/Debug/netstandard1.4 folder? We've also tried Publish which just creates a NuGet package. We need ALL DLL's in the output folder for our build process so we can automate the copying of the full plugin/module code.

Is there a way to force the creation of all DLL's in the target framework bin folder on Build? If not, is this on the roadmap to be included. This is the last and only impediment for us to move to NETStandard/.Net Core.

[livarcocc]

You can set <CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>true</CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies> in your project to get the dlls copied from the NuGet cache to the output of your project.

[dfarrNTST]

This worked, thank you. Will they add this to VS in the future?

[dasMulli]

Also, you are able to dotnet publish your library which will include all NuGet dlls.

[springy76]

Where is the official documentation about <CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>? Why I only find references on github, stackoverflow and misc blogs for so many properties? What is the name of the new csproj format other than "the new csproj format"?

[MSDNAndi]

Where is the official documentation about <CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>? Why I only find references on github, stackoverflow and misc blogs for so many properties? What is the name of the new csproj format other than "the new csproj format"?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/project-sdk/msbuild-props
it is documented here at this time.