Transitive global usings

[maxkoshevoi]

Just noticed that this question might be better suited from https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn. Feel free to move it there is this is the case.

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Is it possible for global usings declared in one project to be propagated to all projects that reference it? Kinda how it works with NuGet/project references now?

So far I have two workarounds, nether of which are a good solution:

1. Declare all global usings in Usings.cs, and manually include it as a link in all dependent projects. If said project also has Usings.cs, DependentUpon="Usings.cs" can be added so that VS automatically nest them.

<ItemGroup>
  <Compile Include="..\MyApp.Domain\Usings.cs" Link="Usings.Domain.cs" DependentUpon="Usings.cs" />
</ItemGroup>

Downsides:

• Usings.cs need to be manually included
• Files are visible in solution explorer (I'd prefer this kind of configuration be located in csproj)
  

2. Declare all global usings in Directory.Build.props so they are autoincluded.

<ItemGroup>
  <Using Add="MyApp.UnitTests.Common" />
</ItemGroup>

Downsides:

• It will include it virtually in every project which is not the intent. Each project would need to have it's own Directory.Build.props to only include usings from project it depends on, or something.

[maxkoshevoi]

Moved to dotnet/roslyn#56521