Important .NET CLI commands

ByAnkush Jain| Last Updated On Saturday, Feb 05, 2022

.NET

While working with .NET Core, it sometimes makes your life easy if know a few important .NET CLI commands.

Here are some of the most commonly used .NET CLI commands.

General

// To check current .NET info
dotnet --info

// To check installed SDKs
dotnet --list-sdks

// To check installed runtimes
dotnet --list-runtimes

Restore

// To restore NuGet packages
dotnet restore

Implicit restore

You don't have to run dotnet restore because it's run implicitly by all commands that require a restore to occur, such as dotnet new, dotnet build, dotnet run, dotnet test, dotnet publish, and dotnet pack. To disable implicit restore, use the --no-restore option.

Create

// To create a new dotnet application
dotnet new <template> --output <output-directory>

//  To create a new console application
dotnet new console --output sample1

// To create a new web application
dotnet new webapp -o aspnetcoreapp

Build

// To build a solution
dotnet build solution.sln -c "Debug"

// To build a project
dotnet build project.csproj -c "Debug"

Publish

// To publish an application
dotnet publish -c "Release"

// To publish a project
dotnet publish "AccountingSoftware.API" -c "Release" -f "net6.0" --self-contained false

How does `dotnet publish` work

dotnet publish compiles the application, reads through its dependencies specified in the project file, and publishes the resulting set of files to a directory.

Run

// To run published app directly
dotnet MyApp.dll

// To run an application in debug mode
dotnet run [--project sample1] [--launch-profile "launch-profile-name"]

How does `dotnet run` work

It first builds the project using dotnet build and then runs the app from the output directory bin/debug/netcoreapp3.1/MainApp.dll
It uses a launch-profile to run the project.
So command dotnet run = dotnet build + execute launch-profile command