Azure DevOps NuGet Artifacts

NuGet is the Microsoft-supported way of sharing codes for .NET. Compiled codes (DLLs) are bundled into packages. In the case of NuGet, package is a ZIP file with .nupkgextension. A NuGet package contains DLL files that include code, other related files and a descriptive manifest that contains details related to the package, which we discuss later.

Azure DevOps Artifacts allow you to consume and publish your own NuGet packages. The objective of this article is to briefly summarize steps of publishing and consuming NuGet packages with Azure DevOps private artifact feed. There are varies kinds of tools to work with NuGet,But for this article I used Nuget .exe CLI.

The nuget.exe CLI can be used with your .NET Framework projects and non-SDK-style projects. If you are using an SDK-style project, please use the dotnet CLI instead.

Let’s go through the following steps to publish a NuGet package to Azure DevOps Artifacts.

Step 01: Setting up NuGet .exe CLI

You can download NuGet .exe CLI from nuget.org and save .exe file to a suitable folder.

Then double click on the setup file and you’ll see a command prompt that appears automatically. Then it will take a few seconds to install and the command prompt will disappear.

Now add the folder that contains .exe file to your PATHenvironment variable.

Simply open cmd and type nugetto check whether you have successfully installed Nuget .exe CLI.

You can check whether the NuGet is installed successfully

Step 02: Create a feed

If you don’t have an Artifact feed you can create a one using the following steps. If you already have one, you are welcome to skip.

Go to Azure Artifacts

Select +New feed

Select +New feed

Then,

• Give the feed a name
• Choose who can read and contribute packages in your feed
• Choose the upstream sources for your feed
• select Create

Why Upstream?

Upstream sources enable you to use a single feed to store both the packages from both public feeds and authenticated feeds.

If you enabled upstream, when you install a package from the remote feed a copy of it will be saved in the feed. Hence if you enable upstream, you will see many packages in your feed which are defined as dependencies of your own NuGet package.

Step 03: Connect to feed

Select Connect to feed

Then you’ll appear a window as follows.

Copy the command under Add this feed

Open the command prompt and paste the command given in Add this feed section with your email and Personal Access Token. You must create a PAT with read and write access to packaging.

nuget.exe sources Add -Name “{feedName}” -Source “https://{organization}.pkgs.visualstudio.com/_packaging/{feedName}/nuget/v3/index.json” -username {email} -password {PAT token}

You can see that, It will update NuGet.config file in the following folder.

C:\Users\{yourAccount}\AppData\Roaming\NuGet

Now you are ready to publish 😊

Step 04: Publish your package

First of all, build your project and go inside the root folder. Then open the command prompt inside the folder and type,

nuget spec

A file called {project name}.nuspec will be created. It contains metadata about your package.

Fresh .nuspec file

You should edit it by providing details of your package.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2013/05/nuspec.xsd">
<metadata>
<id>SpecificId</id>
<version>1.0.0</version>
<title>Title of Package</title>
<authors>Auther's name</authors>
<owners>Owner's name</owners>
<requireLicenseAcceptance>false</requireLicenseAcceptance>
<description>Description</description>
<copyright>Copyright ©  2019</copyright>
<dependencies>
<dependency id="Autofac" version="4.6.2" />
</dependencies>
</metadata>
</package>

You can ignore dependencies if you want. But if you mention dependencies in .nuspecthe file, they will also install automatically with your package when using.

Now execute the command,

nuget pack {projectname}.csproj

And it will create a package called {SpecificId}.{version}.nupkg

If you want to look inside of the package, just change the extension .nupkg to .zip

Step 04: Publishing

You have to use push command given in connect to feed window

nuget.exe push -Source " feedName " -ApiKey AzureDevOps {SpecificId}.{version}.nupkg

then it will ask for credentials and give your email and PAT.

But giving PAT for both “UserName” and “Password” worked properly for me😉

Step 05: Consuming a package

If you are using NuGet .exe CLI execute the following command inside a certain folder.

nuget install {SpecificId} -version {version}

It will ask credentials and give them as same as above.

Thank you very much for reading. 😊