Secrets of project.json file

As you may already notice ASP.NET Core is using project.json files to controls almost all aspects of the project. It contains lot of section (which I will describe bellow) with full support of intellisense. That file is also synchronized with Solution Explorer – removing referenced from file will automatically update References node in Solution Explorer.

Here is the list of project.json sect:ion which can be used to configure you project:

• name – this is the name of the project used for assembly name and the name of the package
• version – Semver version of the project (used for NuGet project)
• description – longer description of the project used in assembly properties
• copyright – copyright information’s used in assembly properties
• title – this is friendly name of the project (not allowed when using name property)
• entryPoint – the entrypoint method of the project (main by default)
• testRunner – here you can configure name of test runner to be used with project (for example NUnit or xUnit)
• authors  - array of string with the name of the application authors
• language – language of the project
• embedInteropTypes – set this to true if you want to embed COM interop types in the assembly
• preprocess – specifies which files will be included in preprocessing
  

     1: { 

     2:     "preprocess": "compiler/preprocess/**/*.cs" 

     3: }

• shared – specifies which files are shared (used for library export)
• dependencies – an object that defines the package dependencies of the project
  

     1: "dependencies": {

     2:     "System.Reflection.Metadata": "1.3.0",

     3:     "Microsoft.Extensions.JsonParser.Sources": {

     4:       "type": "build",

     5:       "version": "1.0.0-rc2-20221"

     6:     },

     7:     "Microsoft.Extensions.HashCodeCombiner.Sources": {

     8:       "type": "build",

     9:       "version": "1.1.0-alpha1-21456"

    10:     },

    11:     "Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyModel": "1.0.0-*"

    12: }

• tools – object that defines package dependencies that are used as tools for the current project. Tools can for example include code generators or post-build tools that perform tasks related to packing.
• scripts – here you can define scripts to be run during the build process. Each key of this object identifies where in the build the script is run. Here is the list of supported events:
  • precompile
  • postcompile
  • prepublish
  • postpublish
  
  

     1: {

     2:     "scripts": {

     3:         "precompile": "generateCode.cmd"

     4:         "postcompile": [ "obfuscate.cmd", "removeTempFiles.cmd" ]

     5:     }

     6: }

• buildOptions – here you can define properties which can control various aspects of compilation. Full list of options can be found here
• publishOptions – properties for compilation configuration such as:
  • include
  • exclude – which files to exclude from the build
  • includeFiles
  • excludeFiles
  • builtIns
  • mappings
  • runtimeOptions  - list of parameters to be provided to the runtime during initialization. More details here.
• packOptions – defines options pertaining to the packaging of the project output into a NuGet package
• analyzerOptions – object with properties used by code analysers
• configurations – here you can define different configurations for the project such as Debug or Relese. Here is the example:
  

     1: "configurations": {

     2:   "Release": {

     3:     "buildOptions": {

     4:       "allowUnsafe": false

     5:     }

     6:   }

     7: }

• frameworks – list of frameworks supported by this project. Example bellow and more details here.
  

     1: "frameworks": { 

     2:     "netcoreapp1.0": { 

     3:       "imports": [ 

     4:         "dotnet5.6", 

     5:         "dnxcore50", 

     6:         "portable-net45+win8" 

     7:       ] 

     8:     } 

     9:   }