Refitter.MSBuild 1.6.4 - Can't generate from .refitter file

[david-pw]

Hi @christianhelle

I've taken a look through the issues, and certain discussions and can't quite figure out why I can't get the MSBuild package to generate the interfaces etc.

    <PackageReference Include="Refit" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Refit.HttpClientFactory" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Refitter.MSBuild" Version="1.6.4" />

I can get it working with SourceGenerator - however, our team would rather this happen at build time using MSBuild so that we don't have to check the generated files in.

    <PackageReference Include="Refit" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Refit.HttpClientFactory" Version="8.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Refitter.SourceGenerator" Version="1.6.4">
      <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
      <IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
    </PackageReference>
      
    <ItemGroup>
      <AdditionalFiles Include="openapi.json" />
      <AdditionalFiles Include=".refitter" />
    </ItemGroup>

.refitter

{
  "openApiPath": "./openapi.json",
  "namespace": "Pw.HttpClients.Pw",
  "naming": {
    "useOpenApiTitle": false,
    "interfaceName": "PwClient"
  },
  "generateContracts": true,
  "generateClients": true,
  "useCancellationTokens": true,
  "generateOperationHeaders": false,
  "operationNameGenerator": "SingleClientFromPathSegments"
}

        builder
            .Services
            .AddRefitClient<IPwClient>()
                            // ^^^ -- could not be found
            .ConfigureHttpClient((sp, client) =>
            {
               ...
            })
            .AddHttpMessageHandler<AuthenticationHandler>();

Also as an aside, the source generator in VS2022 is a little strange in that you have to modify the refitter file to regenerate the generated code. Whereas, rebuilding or building the project doesn't regenerate.. which for the life of me I can't figure out why.

[christianhelle]

@david-pw thanks for taking the time to bring this to my attention

I have this sample project with the MSBuild setup:
https://github.com/christianhelle/refitter/tree/main/test/MSBuild

and it seems to not work fine when running from Github Actions:
https://github.com/christianhelle/refitter/actions/runs/17995111234/job/51192776561

The sample MSBuild project should fail to build as the Program.cs in the example uses the generated code, which doesn't exist in the git repo

I made improvements over the MSBuild package over the summer to ensure that the generated code is included in the compilation but it seems to not work on my local machine anymore after I installed the .NET SDK 10.0.100-rc.1 😡

Let me see what I can do

[christianhelle]

@david-pw so it seems that it failed on my machine due a VS Code instance locking my .nuget/packages folder causing dotnet add package Refitter.MSBuild to fail

When I clean up everything, restart my machine and start from scratch, everything works as it should

[christianhelle]

@david-pw you can actually remove this

    <ItemGroup>
      <AdditionalFiles Include="openapi.json" />
      <AdditionalFiles Include=".refitter" />
    </ItemGroup>

The MSBuild package will do a recursive folder scan from the folder containing the .csproj file

[christianhelle]

Good catch @david-pw !! The MSBuild just executes the Refitter CLI but does not pass in --skip-validation

I also fixed those fancy unicode output that IDE's don't render nicely by passing in --simple-output

[christianhelle]

@david-pw If you're up for it, you can add the extra arguments yourself. All that's needed is to change the following line in RefitterGenerateTask:

var args = $"{refitterDll} --settings-file {file}";

to

var args = $"{refitterDll} --settings-file {file} --skip-validation --simple-output";

If you create a pull request then I'll make sure we get it merged and released

[david-pw]

PR here: #767 let me know if I need to do anything else.

[david-pw]

Closing the loop here: With the latest update to 1.6.5 and making the following changes to my CSPROJ, MSbuild is generating the files just as the source generator would 🙂

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
        <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
        <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
        <!-- Needed because Microsoft.OpenApi doesn't support OpenAPI 3.1.0+ Yet -->
        <!-- See: https://github.com/microsoft/OpenAPI.NET/issues/795 -->
        <RefitterSkipValidation>true</RefitterSkipValidation>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
      <PackageReference Include="Refit.HttpClientFactory" Version="8.0.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="Refitter.MSBuild" Version="1.6.5" />
    </ItemGroup>

    <ItemGroup>
      <Folder Include="Generated\" />
    </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Will mark this thread as answered, thanks for your help!

[christianhelle]

Also as an aside, the source generator in VS2022 is a little strange in that you have to modify the refitter file to regenerate the generated code. Whereas, rebuilding or building the project doesn't regenerate.. which for the life of me I can't figure out why.

I'm about to give up that source generator... it works fine when working with the CLI tools but it works so bad on Visual Studio. I think it's because I use the incremental source generator which was designed to only trigger when there are changes to file that is relevant to the source generator. The problem is that it's so unreliable.

I spend most of my day in JetBrains Rider when working with C#, and for everything else I'm on VS Code or some text based editor like vim or helix

[david-pw]

Haha - fair enough, the burdens of maintaining source generators 😆 .. the behavior in VS2022 was the impetus for us trying out the MSBuild package.

[christianhelle]

I only recently tried using the MSBuild package from an IDE and it actually behaves much better than the source generator approach. It seems that IDE's like Visual Studio silently build the project in the background