.NET plugin

The dotnet plugin builds .NET projects using the dotnet tool.

Legacy plugin

This plugin is superseded by the .NET plugin (v2).

Keys

This plugin provides the following unique keys.

dotnet-build-configuration

Type: string

The dotnet build configuration to use. The default value is "Release".

dotnet-self-contained-runtime-identifier

Type: string

Create a self contained .NET application using the specified Runtime Identifier. See the Runtime Identifier catalogue for a list of possible values. This key has no default value, meaning that it won’t create self-contained executables unless set.

Dependencies

The .NET plugin needs the dotnet executable to build programs but does not provision it by itself, to allow flexibility in the choice of compiler version.

Some common means of providing dotnet are:

  • The dotnet8 Ubuntu package, declared as a build-package.

  • The dotnet-sdk snap, declared as a build-snap from the desired channel.

Another alternative is to define another part with the name dotnet-deps, and declare that the part using the dotnet plugin comes after the dotnet-deps part through the after key. In this case, the plugin will assume that this new part will stage the dotnet executable to be used in the build step. This can be useful, for example, in cases where a specific, unreleased version of dotnet is desired but unavailable as a snap or an Ubuntu package.

Finally, whether the resulting built artefact will need the presence of the .NET runtime to execute depends on the value of the dotnet-self-contained-runtime-identifier key. Self-contained builds bundle the necessary portions of the runtime in the generated executable.

How it works

During the build step the plugin performs the following actions:

  • Call dotnet build -c <config> where <config> is the value of the dotnet-build-configuration key.

  • Call dotnet publish to install the generated assets into ${CRAFT_PART_INSTALL}, optionally passing the value of dotnet-self-contained-runtime-identifier if set.

Examples

The following example uses the dotnet-sdk snap to build an application in Debug configuration, generating assets that are self-contained to execute on linux-x64 environments.

parts:
  my-dotnet-part:
    source: .
    plugin: dotnet
    build-snaps: [dotnet-sdk]
    dotnet-build-configuration: Debug
    dotnet-self-contained-runtime-identifier: linux-x64