MSBuild doing OctoPack before Publish

Question

I have a C# .NET v4.6.1 compiled Azure Function, I am using Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Functions and I deploy it using my usual CI/CD Pipeline.

That being, a TeamCity MSBuild Build Step to create an OctoPack (because I have installed the OctoPack 3.6.3 NuGet package. I then publish the resulting *.nupkg file to Octopus and Create a Release.

This is how I do all my Azure App Services, however as is nicely described in this post, compiled Azure Functions create a few extra files/folders when they are published to describe the entry point for the Function.

I can see (in the TeamCity build logs) that these extra files/folders are created by MSBuild (15.3.409.57025) but only AFTER it has prepared the OctoPack. Meaning my OctoPack artifact does not contain the necessary function specific folder(s) with the function.json file nor the functionsSdk.out.

I have managed to get around this issue by doing an extra TeamCity NuGet Pack Build Step to build the OctoPack again. I also had to create a *.nuspec file in the project root, where I tell NuGet Pack to include everything (see below) because using just the *.csproj file also ignored the extra folder/files.

<files>
    <file src="bin\Release\net461\**\*.*" />
</files>

This works because it runs after the MSBuild Step and the extra folders/files are present. It will also be robust enough to support other Functions when are added to the Project going forward.

The need for this extra step and the *.nuspec file seems unnecessary. Can anyone see where I went wrong and why MSBuild seems to have the sequence of Publish and OctoPak wrong?

The same issue here. I tried specifying the files to include, but an error showed up `OCTONUGET Could not find a part of the path ***` — AxelWass, Mar 06 '18 at 14:37

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 05 '18 at 20:14

This could be a reason:

If the section exists, OctoPack by default won't attempt to automatically add any extra files to your package, so you'll need to be explicit about which files you want to include. You can override this behavior with /p:OctoPackEnforceAddingFiles=true which will instruct OctoPack to package a combination of files using its conventions, and those defined by your section.

https://octopus.com/docs/packaging-applications/creating-packages/nuget-packages/using-octopack

Another idea — broken .csproj file. Please check it.

Maybe, during the merge these two lines were reordered:

<Import Project="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<Import Project="..\packages\OctoPack.3.6.3\build\OctoPack.targets" Condition="Exists('..\packages\OctoPack.3.6.3\build\OctoPack.targets')" />

There should be Microsoft.CSharp.targets first. Order matters.

Thanks for the reply @Vladimir, because it is a compiled Azure Function the project file is not a typical .NET Standard .csproj so there are no import statements. `code` net461 ... `code` — David Dunkley, Mar 28 '18 at 09:21

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 18 '18 at 20:25

Workaround: OctoPack running after publish

<Target Name="SetRunOctoPack">
    <PropertyGroup>
      <RunOctoPack>true</RunOctoPack>
    </PropertyGroup>
</Target>

<Target Name="AfterPublish" DependsOnTargets="SetRunOctoPack">
  <CallTarget Targets="OctoPack"/>
</Target>

MSBuild doing OctoPack before Publish

2 Answers2