Create a nuget package from a NetCore2.1 project

Question

I am struggling to get dotnet pack to generate a nuget package from a .NetCore2.1 project.

When I run dotnet pack from the cmd line the project is restored but then it goes no further.

Is this a limitation? I am struggling to find anything valuable online.

I am using AspNetCore.Mvc so moving to standard is not an option...

Thanks.

Answer 1

As Martin says above, test projects are not packable, in my case, we had an unneeded reference to

Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk

Upon removing this reference I could package the project

Answer 2

ASP.NET Core and Xunit / test projects aren't packable by default. To create a package containing View assets, create a Razor class library instead. Or create a class library project for .NET Core.

Alternatively, you can add this to your csproj file to force the project to be packable:

<PropertyGroup>
  <IsPackable>true</IsPackable>
</PropertyGroup>

Do not that these defaults have been put in place to prevent packages from creating unwanted side-effects or not behaving as expected so use with caution.