Create minimal F# project

build.fsx

#r "paket:
nuget Fake.DotNet.Cli
nuget Fake.IO.FileSystem
nuget Fake.Core.Target 
nuget Fake.Core.ReleaseNotes
nuget Fake.Dotnet.Paket //"
#load ".fake/build.fsx/intellisense.fsx"
open Fake.Core
open Fake.DotNet
open Fake.IO
open Fake.IO.FileSystemOperators
open Fake.IO.Globbing.Operators
open Fake.Core.TargetOperators

Target.initEnvironment ()

let release = ReleaseNotes.load "RELEASE_NOTES.md"

Target.create "Clean" (fun _ ->
    !! "src/**/bin"
    ++ "src/**/obj"
    |> Shell.cleanDirs 
)

Target.create "Build" (fun _ ->
    !! "src/**/*.*proj"
    |> Seq.iter (DotNet.build id)
)

//Use Dotnet.pack if you dont use paket
Target.create "Pack" (fun _ ->
    Paket.pack(fun p -> 
        { p with
            ToolType = ToolType.CreateLocalTool()
            OutputPath = "nuget"
            Version = release.NugetVersion
            ReleaseNotes = release.Notes |> String.toLines })
)

Target.create "All" ignore

"Clean"
  ==> "Build"
  ==> "Pack"
  ==> "All"

Target.runOrDefaultWithArguments "All"

Steps.md

0.a Ensure newest dotnet SDK version

0.b Init repo with appropriate license and gitignore (e.g. Visual Studio)

0.c Clone repo

1. Install Fake template : dotnet new -i "fake-template::*"

2. In the repo root:

   • dotnet new fake (creates basic build script)
   • dotnet new global.json (locks minimum dotnet SDK version)
   • mkdir src

3. in the src directory:

   • dotnet new classlib --framework netstandard2.1 -lang F# -n "myProj" (adapt arguments accordingly)

4. Back in the project root:

   • dotnet new sln(creates .sln file with the same name as the root directory)
   • dotnet sln .\testproj.sln add .\src\myProj\myProj.fsproj --in-root (adapt names of sln and fsproj files accordingly)
   • create a RELEASE_NOTES.md in the project root (for versioning of the nuget package) like this

5. (If you want to use paket) In the project root:

   • dotnet tool install paket
   • dotnet paket init
   • dotnet paket add {YourPackage} (reference the packages you need)

6. Create a paket.references file containing the referencces needed for the project in src/myProj

7. in src/myProj, use dotnet paket install

8. For nuget package generation:

   • replace contents of build.fsx with the script above (this may lead to future incompatibilities, bit this gist is only thought of as a temporary helper).
   • in src/myProj create a paket.template file like this

9. you can now build the project and package using ./fake.cmd build from the project root.

10. Further things that will make this not so much 'minimal' anymore:

    • use https://github.com/MNie/Expecto.Template for creating a test project
    • use https://github.com/SteveGilham/altcover/wiki/QuickStart-Guide to set up altcover test coverage calculation for the test project
    • heres an example fake build target for that: https://github.com/CSBiology/BioFSharp/blob/developer/build.fsx#L265
    • use http://fsprojects.github.io/FSharp.Formatting/ for docs generation (they added a dotnet tool recently, i have not tested it so far but looks promising)