Using dotnet pack creates NUGET with dependencies but without my own code

Question

I have a simple .NET Core 3.1 class library that implements some logging functionality inside classes and has a nlog.config file. The .csproj looks like this

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp3.1</TargetFramework>
    <OutputType>Library</OutputType>
    <IsPackable>true</IsPackable>
    <GeneratePackageOnBuild>true</GeneratePackageOnBuild>
    <NuspecFile>Sima.Logging.nuspec</NuspecFile>
  </PropertyGroup>
      
  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="NLog" Version="4.7.12" />
    <PackageReference Include="NLog.Web.AspNetCore" Version="4.9.3" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

As you can see, my .csproj references a .nuspec file. I need to do this because I want to include the nlog.config as a content file. The .nuspec looks like this

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/packaging/2010/07/nuspec.xsd">
  <metadata>
    <id>Sima.Logging</id>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
            
    <contentFiles>
      <files include="**/nlog.config" buildAction="Content" copyToOutput="true" flatten="true" />
    </contentFiles>
            
    <dependencies>
      <group>
        <dependency id="NLog" version="4.7.12" exclude="Build,Analyzers" />
        <dependency id="NLog.Web.AspNetCore" version="4.9.3" exclude="Build,Analyzers" />
      </group>
    </dependencies>
  </metadata>
        
  <files>
    <file src="contentFiles\**" target="contentFiles" />
  </files>
</package>

After packaging my library using dotnet pack , the nupkg only includes the two dependencies to NLog, but none of my actual code (in my class) is included in the package .

It seems like NuGet doesnt know what to actually build. What did I miss?

Answer 1

When creating Nuget package (*.nupkg), you must define all files you want to be included in that package. In nuspec config you are missing following:

<files>
   <file src="bin\Debug\*.dll" target="lib" />
</files>

Where bin\Debug\ is the output path of your build. For further reference please visit the documentation .