How to Get .Net Core Projects to Copy Nuget References to the Build Output

How do I get .NET Core projects to copy NuGet references to the build output?

You can add this to a <PropertyGroup> inside your csproj file to enforce copying NuGet assemblies to the build output:

<CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>true</CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>

However, note that the build output (bin/Release/netcoreapp*/*) is not supposed to be portable and distributable, the output of dotnet publish is. But in your case, copying the assemblies to the build output is probably very useful for testing purposes. But note that you could also use the DependencyContext api to resolve the DLLs and their locations that are part of the application's dependency graph instead of enumerating a local directory.

How to configure a .NET Core project to copy a specified NuGet reference to the build output?

Assuming you're using Visual Studio...
Project->Properties->Build Events

"Put this in the Post-build event command line:" box

copy "$(SolutionDir)assembly.dll" "$(TargetDir)"

Or add this to your project file:

<Target Name="PostBuild" AfterTargets="PostBuildEvent">
    <Exec Command="copy "$(SolutionDir)assembly.dll" "$(TargetDir)"" />
  </Target>

Is there a way to copy nuget package references from one solution to another in .net-core?

You could just copy the PackageReference nodes you need to the new project. Source:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/nuget/consume-packages/package-references-in-project-files

<ItemGroup>
    <!-- ... -->
    <PackageReference Include="Contoso.Utility.UsefulStuff" Version="3.6.0" />
    <!-- ... -->
</ItemGroup>

Some interesting reads: What are package references and how will they help me optimise the way I deal with Nuget packages and Migrate from packages.config to PackageReference

Copy NuGet contentFiles transitively to referenced project

If you are in control of the NuGet package

You can add additional build targets in which you are able to specify that the content files should be copied.

Add build/MyNuGetPackage.targets to the NuGet package:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <ItemGroup>

    <!-- For all files in /contentFiles -->
    <Content Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)..\contentFiles\**\*.*">
      <!-- Copy to output directory on build -->
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>

  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

This will copy all content files of this package into the output folder, including cases where this package is transitively referenced.

.Net Core - Building to release does not copy NUGET dependencies

It's the difference between building (for testing) and publishing (for deployment to production). dotnet build will build your application for local testing and usage. It will assume that nuget dependencies are present on the machine. If you want to build for deployment, use dotnet publish instead:

dotnet publish -c Release

Then look into the ./bin/Release/netcoreapp2.0/publish directory. It should contain all your dependencies too.

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/deploy-with-cli for more details.

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