Get Started
Your first steps to creating and publishing a .NET OSS project. Experienced OSS .NET developers can jump directly to the full documentation.
Setup
Download the tools useful for developing a .NET library:
.NET Core SDK contains everything you need to compile a .NET library and NuGet package.
Visual Studio Community is a fully featured IDE for Windows that is free for OSS projects. Visual Studio Code is a free cross-platform IDE.
NuGet Package Explorer lets you view NuGet package metadata and content.
Create a GitHub repository and choose an OSS license.
Design and development
Plan early for your library to be cross-platform. .NET runs in many places, the more people you can reach the better.
Manage what dependencies your library will reference. There is a big eco-system of packages to use but dependencies are a common source of friction.
Decide on strong naming your library.
Packaging and publishing
Create a NuGet package. NuGet is the primary way developers discover and acquired open source libraries.
Enable SourceLink debugging for your package.
Future development
Iterate and version your library.
Learn about breaking changes. Do your best to minimize disruption to your users while fixing bugs and adding features.
✔️ DO host your project on GitHub or another online distributed source control service.
✔️ DO choose an OSS license.
A project without a license defaults to exclusive copyright, making it impossible for other people to use.
More Information