A P P E N D I X  A

Package Manifest (.nuspec) Reference

In previous chapters of this book, you’ve seen NuGet package manifests or .nuspec files being created a number of times. When creating packages, NuGet uses a convention over configuration approach. These conventions are rather simple by default but relying on them may not be enough to mold the package you wish to create. A NuGet package manifest, also known as a .nuspec file, describes the contents and metadata of your package. It is included in each NuGet package, or .nupkg, file, and it is the file you’ll need to create the actual package. In short, before you can create a package, you’ll need to describe it.

This appendix covers all details about available options in the XML of a package manifest. It is largely based on the information available on the official NuGet web site at http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/nuspec-reference. NuGet documentation (from the Outercurve Foundation) is licensed under Creative Commons license BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).