Overview

Package Management is an extension that makes it easy to discover, install, and publish NuGet, npm, and Maven packages in Azure DevOps Server. It’s deeply integrated with other hubs like Build so that package management can become a seamless part of your existing workflows.

Prerequisites

In order to complete this lab you will need the Azure DevOps Server 2019 virtual machine provided by Microsoft. Click the button below to launch the virtual machine on the Microsoft Hands-on-Labs portal.

Launch the virtual machine

Alternatively, you can download the virtual machine from here.

Exercise 1: Working with the package management service

Task 1: Configuring the service

1. Log in as Sachin Raj (VSALM\Sachin). All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.

2. Launch Internet Explorer from the taskbar.

3. Navigate to the Azure DevOps Portal.

   

4. Select Access levels.

   

5. The Artifacts service includes package management and comes with Azure DevOps Server. It is licensed per-user, although Visual Studio Enterprise licenses include access. In this case, our demo users are all licensed with Visual Studio Enterprise, although they are not yet assigned that access level. We will start that process now by selecting the VS Enterprise tab.

   

6. Click Add.

   

7. Add Sachin Raj as a licensed user and click Save changes.

   

8. Now that Sachin (the current user) is licensed, the package management functionality will appear in his Azure DevOps experience. Click the PU DevOps Portal shortcut to navigate to the PartsUnlimited project.

   

9. Navigate to the Artifacts hub.

   

10. There are no feeds by default.

Task 2: Creating and connecting to a feed

1. Click New feed. This feed will be a collection of NuGet packages available to users within the organization and will sit alongside the public NuGet feed as a peer. The scenario in this lab will focus on the workflow for using with the package management service, so the actual architectural and development decisions are purely illustrative.

   

2. This feed will include common functionality that can be shared across projects in this organization. You also have the ability to customize who can see the feed, as well as whether to include packages from public sources. Set the name to “PartsUnlimitedShared” and click Create.

   

3. Any user who wants to connect to this NuGet feed must configure their environment. Click Connect to feed.

   

4. Copy the Package source URL. This is the only thing Visual Studio and NuGet need to start taking advantage of the new feed. Leave the dialog open in the browser.

   

5. Launch Visual Studio from the taskbar.

6. Select the option to Continue without code.

   

7. Select Tools | NuGet Package Manager | Package Manager Settings.

8. Locate the Package Sources section and click the Add button to add a new package source.

   

9. Set the Name to “PartsUnlimitedShared” and paste the Source URL copied earlier. Click Update followed by OK. Visual Studio is now connected to the new feed.

   

Task 3: Creating and publishing a NuGet package

1. From the main menu of Visual Studio, select File | New | Project. We will now create a shared assembly that will be published as a NuGet package so that other teams can integrate it and stay up to date without having to work directly with the project source.

2. Search for “class library”. Select the Class Library (.NET Framework) template and click Next. Note that there are multiple class library templates, so be sure to select this specific one.

   

3. Set the Project name to “PartsUnlimited.Shared” and select .NET Framework 4.5.1. Click Create to create the project.

   

4. In Solution Explorer, delete Class1.cs.

   

5. Press Ctrl+Shift+B to build the project. In the next task we’ll use NuGet.exe to generate a NuGet package directly from the built project, but it requires the project to be built first.

6. Return to the browser and click Download NuGet. Save it to the desktop folder for convenience.

   

7. Return to Visual Studio. From Solution Explorer, right-click the PartsUnlimited.Shared project node and select Open Folder in File Explorer.

   

8. Move the downloaded nuget.exe into this folder so that it’s a peer to the .csproj file.

   

9. In the same Windows Explorer window, select File | Open command prompt.

   

10. Execute the line below to create a .nupkg file from the project. Note that this is a quick shortcut to package the NuGet bits together for deployment. NuGet is very customizable and offers a lot of great flexibility for providing detailed information for consumers. You can learn more over on the NuGet package creation page.

     nuget.exe pack PartsUnlimited.Shared.csproj
    

11. NuGet builds a minimal package based on the information it is able to pull from the project. For example, note that the name is PartsUnlimited.Shared.1.0.0.nupkg. That version number was pulled from the assembly.

    

12. Return to Visual Studio. From Solution Explorer, open Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs.

    

13. The AssemblyVersion attribute specifies the version number to build into the assembly. Each NuGet release requires a unique version number, so if we continue to use this method for creating packages, we will need to remember to increment this before building.

    

14. Return to the command prompt and execute the following command (it should be on one line). Note that you need to provide an “API Key”, which can be any non-empty string. We’re using “AzureDevOps“ here.

     nuget.exe push -source "PartsUnlimitedShared" -ApiKey AzureDevOps PartsUnlimited.Shared.1.0.0.nupkg
    

15. The command should succeed after a few seconds.

    

16. Return to the browser window open to Azure DevOps and refresh the window. You should now see the organization’s NuGet package is published in the feed. Click it to view the details.

    

17. The details have been imported and are now ready for others to consume.

    

Task 4: Importing a NuGet package

1. Open a new instance of Visual Studio from the taskbar. We will now add a reference to the PartsUnlimited.Shared NuGet package to an existing project.

2. From the Start Page, open PartsUnlimited.sln. This is the primary project for the PartsUnlimited team.

   

3. In Solution Explorer, right-click the References node under the PartsUnlimitedWebsite project and select Manage NuGet Packages.

   

4. Click the Browse tab and change the Package source to PartsUnlimitedShared. The only package will be the one we just added, so click Install to add it to the project.

   

5. Confirm the add by clicking OK.

   

6. Press Ctrl+Shift+B to build the project. It should succeed. The NuGet package doesn’t add any value yet, but at least we know it’s there.

Task 5: Updating a NuGet package

1. Switch to the instance of Visual Studio that has the PartsUnlimited.Shared project open (the NuGet source project).

2. In Solution Explorer, right-click the PartsUnlimited.Shared project node and select Add | New Item.

   

3. Select the Class template and enter the Name “TaxService.cs”. Click Add to add the class. We can pretend that tax calculation will be consolidated into this shared class and managed centrally so that other teams can simply work with the NuGet package.

   

4. Replace the code in the new file with the code below. For now it will just hardcode a 10% rate.

    namespace PartsUnlimited.Shared
    {
        public class TaxService
        {
            static public decimal CalculateTax(decimal taxable, string postalCode)
            {
                return taxable * (decimal).1;
            }
        }
    }
   

5. Since we’re updating the assembly (and package), return to AssemblyInfo.cs and update the AssemblyVersion to 1.1.0.0.

   

6. Press Ctrl+Shift+B to build the project.

7. Return to the command prompt and execute the following line to repackage the NuGet package. Note that the new package will have the updated version number.

    nuget.exe pack PartsUnlimited.Shared.csproj
   

8. Execute the following line to publish the updated package. Note that the version number has changed to reflect the new package.

    nuget.exe push -source "PartsUnlimitedShared" -ApiKey AzureDevOps PartsUnlimited.Shared.1.1.0.nupkg
   

9. Return to the browser window open to Azure DevOps and refresh the page. You will still be looking at the 1.0.0 version of the package, but you can change that by selecting the 1.1.0 version from the Versions tab.

   

10. Switch back to the instance of Visual Studio open to the main PartsUnlimited project (with PartsUnlimitedWebsite).

11. From Solution Explorer, open PartsUnlimitedWebsite\Utils\DefaultShippingTaxCalculator.cs.

    

12. Locate the call to CalculateTax around line 20 and add the qualifier “PartsUnlimited.Shared.TaxService” to the beginning. The original code called a method internal to this class, so the code we’re adding to the beginning of the line is redirecting it to code from our NuGet assembly. However, since this project hasn’t updated the NuGet package yet, it’s still referencing 1.0.0.0 and doesn’t have these new changes available, so the code will not build.

    

13. In Solution Explorer, right-click the References node and select Manage NuGet Packages.

    

14. NuGet is aware of our update, so click the Updates tab to view the details. Click Update to bring down the new version. If the Updates tab hasn’t yet updated, you can still update the package from the Browse tab.

    

15. If you receive an error indicating that the package is not available, you may need to clear your NuGet cache. You can do this by opening the NuGet options via Tools | NuGet Package Manager | Options and clicking Clear All NuGet Cache(s).

    

16. Click OK to approve the update.

17. Press F5 to build and run the site. It should work as expected.