Nuget Packages – solution level versus project level

I’ve recently been working on a number of projects/solutions which contain nuget packages, one of the requirements I had been given was to add a nuget package which I had created at a solution level instead of it being at project level.

This means just that, the package is for the project solution and not for a particular project within the solution. If you’re still not sure what I mean let me explain with an example to better illustrate.

If you create an empty console application and add the nuget package called xunit runners:-

This will add the package at the solution level rather than to the consoleapplication1 project as shown below:-

Contrast this will a package level nuget package such as NUnit which is a project level nuget package:-

If you need to create a solution level nuget package then here is what I have found so far:-

• Don’t reference a version of the framework within your Nuspec file
• Don’t reference any dll’s

If you do either then you’ll end up with a project level nuget package.

There is more information on this here.