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DOTNET CLI Cheatsheet

Synopsis

The .NET command-line interface (CLI) is a cross-platform toolchain for developing, building, running, and publishing .NET applications.

The .NET CLI is included with the .NET SDK. For more information about how to install the .NET SDK, see Install .NET Core.

CLI commands

The following commands are installed by default:

Basic commands

Command Description
new Initializes a sample .NET Core project in the current directory.
restore Restores the dependencies and tools of a project.
build Builds a project and all of its dependencies.
publish Publishes a .NET Core project for deployment (including the runtime).
run Compiles and immediately executes a .NET Core project.
test Runs unit tests using the test runner specified in a project.
vstest Runs unit tests using the test runner specified in a project.
pack Creates a NuGet package.
migrate Migrates a project.json based project to a msbuild based project.
clean Cleans the output of a .NET Core project.
sln Modifies a .sln file.
help Displays help for a command.
store Stores the specified assemblies in the runtime package store.

Project modification commands

Command Description
add package Adds a NuGet package reference to a project file.
add reference Adds a project-to-project reference to a project file.
remove package Removes a NuGet package reference from a project file.
remove reference Removes a project-to-project reference from a project file.
list reference Lists all project-to-project references in a project.

Advanced commands

Command Description
nuget delete Deletes a package from a NuGet package source.
nuget locals Lists and manages local NuGet resources.
nuget push Pushes a package to a NuGet package source.
msbuild Runs Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) commands.
dotnet install script Installs the .NET CLI tools and adds them to the PATH environment variable.

Tool management commands

Command Description
tool install Installs a global tool.
tool list Lists the installed global tools.
tool update Updates a global tool.
tool restore Restores the tools and dependencies of a project.
tool run Runs a global tool.
tool uninstall Uninstalls a global tool.

Tools are console applications that are installed from NuGet packages and are invoked from the command prompt. You can write tools yourself or install tools written by third parties. Tools are also known as global tools, tool-path tools, and local tools.

Command structure

CLI command structure consists of the driver ("dotnet"), the command, and possibly command arguments and options. You see this pattern in most CLI operations, such as creating a new console app, and running it from the command line. The following commands show when the console app was run from a directory named my_app:

dotnet new console
dotnet build --output ./build_output
dotnet ./build_output/my_app.dll

Driver

The driver is named dotnet and has two responsibilities, either running a framework-dependent app or executing a command.

To run a framework-dependent app, specify the app after the driver, for example, dotnet /path/to/my_app.dll. When executing the command from the folder where the app's DLL resides, just execute dotnet my_app.dll. If you want to use a specific version of the .NET runtime, use the --fx-version <VERSION> option. For more information, see the dotnet command.

When you supply a command to the driver, dotnet.exe starts the CLI command execution process. For example:

dotnet build

First, the driver determines the version of the SDK to use. If there's no global.json file, the latest version of the SDK available is used. Depending on what is latest on the machine, the SDK's version might be either a preview or stable version. After the SDK version is determined, it executes the command.

Command

The command performs an action. For example, dotnet build builds code. dotnet publish publishes code. The commands are implemented as a console application using a dotnet {command} convention.

Arguments

The arguments you pass on the command line are the arguments to the command invoked. For example, when you execute dotnet publish my_app.csproj, the my_app.csproj argument indicates the project to publish and is passed to the publish command.

Options

The options you pass on the command line are the options to the command invoked. For example, when you execute dotnet publish --output /build_output, the --output option and its value are passed to the publish command.