dotbuild

A cross-platform CLI utility that orchestrates dotnet project workflows. Run clean, restore, build, run, and test in a single command — actions are automatically sorted into the correct order and redundant steps are removed.

Installation

npm install -g dotbuild

Usage

Run from any directory containing a .sln or .csproj file.

# Run the default pipeline: clean → restore → test
dotbuild

# Run specific actions (in any order — they will be sorted automatically)
dotbuild clean
dotbuild restore build
dotbuild clean test build restore

Available Actions

Action	Command	Description
clean	dotnet clean	Remove build artifacts
restore	dotnet restore	Restore NuGet packages
build	dotnet build	Compile the project
run	dotnet run	Run the project
test	dotnet test	Run tests (also builds)

Automatic Ordering

Actions are always executed in canonical order regardless of how they are passed:

clean → restore → build → run → test

# These are equivalent:
dotbuild clean restore build test
dotbuild test build restore clean

Smart Optimization

Redundant steps are automatically removed:

• test already builds, so passing both build and test will only run test

# build is dropped because test already builds
dotbuild build test
# → runs: test

dotbuild clean test build restore
# → runs: clean → restore → test

Fail-Fast Execution

Actions run sequentially. If any action fails, execution stops immediately — subsequent actions will not run.

dotbuild clean restore build
# If restore fails, build will not run

Default Behavior

Running dotbuild with no arguments executes: clean → restore → test

(build is included in the default set but optimized away since test covers it.)

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18+)
• .NET SDK

License

MIT