Visual Studio 2015 - Can I make a project for client side-only development that has support for bower, and AngularJS intellisense?

Question

I would like to do some client side-only web development using VS 2015. I don't need any server-side code, and I don't need any .net code compilation going on. However, I would like javascript intellisense, specifically in this case for angularjs (presumably using the _references.js file) and bower support.

How could I achieve this in Visual Studio 2015? I have been looking at the ASP.net 5 templates:

The closest-looking thing I can see is the 'Empty' option, which has no controllers. This also has the little 'dependencies' arrow visible in the tree, and it seems trivial to add bower.json and _references.js (which according to my limited understanding, is what gets the intellisense working properly.)

However, it also has 'Startup.cs' that sets up various services that I don't need for my use case. Removing this file 'naïvely' gives Error CS5001 Program does not contain a static 'Main' method suitable for an entry point when I build the xproj. Unlike with a .csproj, there's no ability to change the output type of the project, and in any case, I don't want to be creating a .dll. I guess the next step might be to use a custom version of Microsoft.DNX.targets, but at this point I seem to be wandering off the beaten track a bit.

So, a 'Web Site'...

...doesn't have the 'Startup.cs', but it doesn't seem to be able to do anything with bower either.

I'd be interested to know how to do this in projects/templates for earlier versions of ASP.net too, if they could offer the same capabilities.

Answer 1

Startup class is useful for static file service. It what actually boots up your 'server'. ASPNET5 empty template is perfect for the job.