Creating a NuGet from Existing Library Projects

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Existing PCL or .NET Standard libraries can be turned into NuGets via the Project Options window:

  1. Right-click on the library project in the Solution Pad and choose Options.

  2. Go to the NuGet Package > Metadata section and enter all the required information in the General tab:

    Enter required metadata

  3. Optionally, add additional metadata in the Details tab.

  4. Once the metadata is configured, you can right-click on the project and choose Create NuGet Package and the .nupkg NuGet package file will be saved in the /bin/ folder (either Debug or Release, depending on configuration).

    Choose Create NuGet Package from the right-click menu

  5. To create the NuGet package on every build or deploy, go to the NuGet Package > Build section and tick Create a NuGet Package when building the project:

    Tick to create a NuGet package

Note

Building the NuGet package can slow down the build process. If this box is not ticked, you can still generate a NuGet package manually at any time from the project context menu (shown in step 4 above).

Verifying the Output

NuGet packages are also ZIP files, so it's possible to inspect the internal structure of the generated package.

This screenshot shows the contents of a PCL-based NuGet – only a single PCL assembly is included:

Files contained in the NuGet package