How to - Add/Remove Nuget Packages in VS Code

Those who have used Visual Studio, would know how easy it is to add a Nuget package or a reference to a project. But, this has not been the case with VS Code. VS Code follows a command line first behavior. Although someone could argue that there is a plugin for all sort of tasks. But, I say, using command line is fun.

How to - Add Nuget packages

The command to add nuget package is :

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dotnet add [PROJECT] package <PACKAGE_NAME> [-h|--help] [-v|--version] [-f|--framework] [-n|--no-restore] [-s|--source] [--package-directory]

A simple example to add the nuget package would be :

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dotnet add package NewtonSoft.Json

This adds the nuget package, with the latest version to the current project. Now the csproj file of your project will look something like this :

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<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>
    <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="NewtonSoft.Json" Version="10.0.3" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

How to - Add a Nuget package from a local folder

If you have a nuget package on your local machine, you can do the following

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dotnet add package log4net -s C:\log4net-2.0.8-src\log4net-2.0.8

This adds the nuget package available in the specified folder. This will have a similar output on the csproj file of the project as mentioned above.

How to - Remove a Nuget package from a project

You can remove an already added nuget package using the following command :

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dotnet remove [PROJECT] package <PACKAGE_NAME> [-h|--help]

For example :

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dotnet remove package log4net

This removes the log4net reference from the current project. This will reflect in the csproj file of the project as well.

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<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
    <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

References : Microsoft Docs