NuGets referenced from analyzer/source-generator should automatically include DLL's

[Eli-Black-Work]

Let's say that my analyzer or source generator depends on the GraphQL NuGet:

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="GraphQL" Version="4.7.1" GeneratePathProperty="true" PrivateAssets="all" />
</ItemGroup>

This will fail, because MSBuild won't automatically include GraphQL's DLL's, so I need to do this:

<!-- See https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn-sdk/blob/0313c80ed950ac4f4eef11bb2e1c6d1009b328c4/samples/CSharp/SourceGenerators/SourceGeneratorSamples/SourceGeneratorSamples.csproj#L13-L30
and https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/discussions/47517#discussioncomment-64145 -->
<PropertyGroup>
    <GetTargetPathDependsOn>$(GetTargetPathDependsOn);GetDependencyTargetPaths</GetTargetPathDependsOn>
</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name="GetDependencyTargetPaths">
    <!-- Manually include the DLL of each NuGet package that this analyzer uses. -->
    <ItemGroup>
        <TargetPathWithTargetPlatformMoniker Include="$(PKGGraphQL)\lib\netstandard2.0\GraphQL.dll" IncludeRuntimeDependency="false" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Target>

I'd like to request that when an analyzer/source-generator references a NuGet, MSBuild automatically hooks up the NuGet's DLL's 🙂

This seems to have been a source of confusion for many! See all of the comments at dotnet/roslyn#47517 🙂

P.S.
Not sure if MSBuild is the correct place to post this?

[benvillalobos]

MSBuild Team Triage: It looks like there's a built in mechanism to do this. If you set property CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies to true in your analyzer project, it will copy over the graphql dependencies you need to its bin/ folder.

[Eli-Black-Work]

@benvillalobos Thanks for the reply! 🙂

I just gave CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies a shot. When building from the command-line, everything works fine, but when I open my project in Visual Studio, the generator crashes with this error:

Generator 'ControllerGenerator' failed to generate source.
It will not contribute to the output and compilation errors may occur as a result.
Exception was of type 'FileNotFoundException' with message 'Could not load file or assembly 'Microsoft.OpenApi.Readers, Version=1.2.3.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=3f5743946376f042' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.'

Here's an example project that reproduces the issue: https://github.com/Bosch-Eli-Black/source-generator-example

I'm using VS 17.3.0 Preview 1.1

Is this something for the MSBuild team to look into, or should I file it somewhere else?

[Eli-Black-Work]

Opened a Roslyn issue for supporting CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies in VS: dotnet/roslyn#61940