GET a package from NuGetV3 API

Question

I'm interested in writing a client library for the NuGet v3 API in a non-.NET language.

What are the requests required to get a package, and what does the response looks like?

i.e.

GET {package-versions} GET {package-version}

Can you also link to the official documentation that covers this scenario?

Answer 1

Here is the official NuGet V3 API documentation. The API is composed of multiple protocols, including:

1. The PackageBaseAddress - The store that contains the actual packages and their manifest files (the nuspec).
2. The Service Index - used by the client to discover the NuGet services
3. The Search Service - used by clients to search for NuGet packages
4. The Registration - A json-LD based structure that stores the packages' metadata. This includes packages' content, dependencies, descriptions, etc...

For example, say you wanted to download the package "Newtonsoft. Json":

1. Get the service index: `GET https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

The response contains the address of the PackageBaseAddress (aka, incorrectly as the flat container, as it is hierarchical and not flat :) ):

{
  "@id": "https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/",
  "@type": "PackageBaseAddress/3.0.0",
  "comment": "Base URL of Azure storage where NuGet package registration info for DNX is stored, in the format https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/{id-lower}/{version-lower}.{version-lower}.nupkg"
},

2. Use the uri provided by the @id as a base uri to list the versions of the desired package: GET https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/newtonsoft.json/index.json, note that this uri is subject to change and is not part of the API
3. Use the same base uri to download a package: GET https://api.nuget.org/v3-flatcontainer/newtonsoft.json/6.0.4/newtonsoft.json.6.0.4.nupkg

You may also want to look at the NuGet client. The client's source code is here; you'll want to start from the NuGet.CommandLine project and walk your way down the stack.