Referencing MSBuildTasks from Nuget package

Question

I'm trying to reference MSBuildTasks from an MSBuild file, and I'm unsure of how to do this when using NuGet for MSBuildTasks.

The reference says to use

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBuildCommunityTasks\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets"/>

when you have installed MSBuildTasks using the msi file. However, when installing from NuGet it puts it in a subfolder that contains version, so if I upgrade MSBuildTasks it will break the path in the build file. What is the best way to reference MSBuildTasks when its installed via NuGet?

Answer 1

I recently set this up for resourcelib, using MSBuildTasks version 1.4.0.45. In this version adding it to the project resulted in the DLL being placed in a "Build" subdirectory, which looks like you need to check in. I tried to have it auto-download, but if it's referenced in a project file it needs to be there from the start.

To add it to the project, I used the following code:

 <PropertyGroup>
  <MSBuildCommunityTasksPath>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\Build</MSBuildCommunityTasksPath>
 </PropertyGroup>
 <Import Project="$(MSBuildCommunityTasksPath)\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets"/>

Here MSBuildProjectDirectory is being used so it can be built with MSBuild on the command line.