MSBuild custom task "Hello World" walkthrough

Question

Can someone write (or link to) a walkthrough that explains exactly how to create a custom MSBuild task and run it during a build? I'm looking for a custom task that inherits from Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Task and does only this:

public override bool Execute()
{
    Log.LogMessage("Hello world!");
    return true;
}

(I've been working on this for hours and keep getting the "The [whatever] task was not found. Check the following" message. I think I must be missing an essential step somewhere. If there's a clear tutorial I can follow, perhaps I'll figure out where I'm falling short.)

Are you including in a ? Can you post the MSBUILD where you try to invoke along with the full class for the task? — Taylor Bird, Mar 02 '11 at 16:55
Well, heck. It turns out my stupid build task *was* working. But Log.LogMessage doesn't display anything in the build window if the build verbosity is set to the default setting Minimal. http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/msbuild/thread/9f60e577-a420-4302-ba5f-703a6cae7992 — Ryan Lundy, Mar 02 '11 at 16:57
...Unless I use the overload that lets me specify `MessageImportance.High`, and then it displays even with Minimal. — Ryan Lundy, Mar 02 '11 at 17:00
Although the OP's original need has been solved, nothing really answered the question of providing a "hello world" example. That would be really useful still. — StayOnTarget, Apr 12 '18 at 16:07

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 19 '23 at 19:07

12

See

Best Practices For Creating Reliable Builds section Creating Custom Tasks.
THE CUSTOM MSBUILD TASK COOKBOOK from Bart De Smet

edited Aug 19 '23 at 19:07

Stephen Klancher

1,374
15
24

answered Mar 02 '11 at 16:55

Sergio Rykov

4,176
25
23

1

Thanks for this. Too many resources such as https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/msbuild/task-writing?view=vs-2017 provide C# and MSBuild code but provide no information on what to do with the C# code so you can actually use it. They do not give the critical piece of information that you need to build a DLL. – Benilda Key Jan 27 '19 at 23:08

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 02 '11 at 16:54

10

Are you declaring your custom task in your MSBuild project file? You need a line like this:

    <UsingTask AssemblyFile="C:\PathTo\MyTasks.dll" TaskName="MyTasks.HelloWord" />

Then MSBuild can execute your task.

answered Mar 02 '11 at 16:54

Carl Raymond

4,429
2
25
39

1

I was doing that, but I didn't realize that TaskName had to be the actual class name including namespace. That seems to be the thing that was my roadblock. – Ryan Lundy Mar 02 '11 at 18:38

MSBuild custom task "Hello World" walkthrough

2 Answers2

Linked