NuGet Package Manager for VS Code

NuGet Package Manager for VS Code brings a Rider-inspired NuGet package management experience to Visual Studio Code.

It provides a dedicated NuGet panel for .NET workspaces, with package discovery, feed search, package details, project-level package actions, source inspection, cache folder management, and an integrated log view.

Status: active work in progress. The extension already includes the package manager surface described below, while some Rider-like capabilities, such as editable sources and a Package Manager Console, are still planned.

Screenshots

Package Manager

Projects and Context Menu

Package Search and Installed Packages

Sources, Cache Folders, and Logs

Features

Rider-Inspired Package Manager

• Dedicated NuGet panel with a NuGet Package Manager webview.
• Tabs for Packages, Sources, Folders, and Logs.
• Tab buttons can be displayed as labels or icons.
• Vertical action rail with tab-specific commands.
• Split package view with package lists on the left and package details on the right.

Workspace Discovery

• Automatically activates for workspaces containing .sln, .slnx, .csproj, .fsproj, or .vbproj files.
• Discovers solution and project targets from the current workspace.
• Detects Directory.Packages.props files and watches package reference changes.
• Refreshes package data when project files or central package files change.
• Allows switching between solution-level and project-level package targets.

Package Browsing

• Lists installed top-level packages for the selected target.
• Lists implicitly installed or transitive packages separately.
• Searches available packages from NuGet feeds.
• Supports searching all feeds or a selected feed.
• Supports prerelease package search.
• Shows installed versions, available versions, and feed badges.
• Supports smart and alphabetical sorting for installed and transitive packages.
• Caches package state per workspace, target, feed, search query, and prerelease setting.

Package Details

• Shows package icon, selected feed, version picker, and source picker.
• Shows package description, authors, tags, published date, and dependency groups.
• Shows deprecated package warnings and alternate package information when available from the feed.
• Allows author and tag clicks to update the package search query.
• Loads and caches package details from NuGet V3 registration data.

Package Actions

• Restores packages for the selected solution or project using dotnet restore.
• Refreshes installed, implicit, available, and outdated package information.
• Upgrades all installed packages with available updates in the selected context.
• Adds packages to one or more selected projects.
• Updates or downgrades packages per selected version.
• Removes packages from one or more selected projects.
• Runs package changes through dotnet package add and dotnet package remove.
• Shows VS Code progress notifications for package operations.

NuGet Sources

• Reads NuGet configuration from machine, user, workspace, and extra configured NuGet.config paths.
• Builds an effective merged source list.
• Adds nuget.org to the effective source list when it is not already configured.
• Shows feed name, URL, enabled state, insecure connection flag, and configuration scope.
• Reloads sources from the action rail.
• Source editing is not implemented yet.

Feed Access and Authentication

• Searches HTTP NuGet V3 feeds through the feed service index.
• Skips non-HTTP feeds for online search while still checking local package availability for installed packages.
• Supports authenticated feeds through NuGet credential providers.
• Discovers credential providers from configured paths, NuGet environment variables, common plugin folders, and CredentialProvider.Microsoft.
• Supports proxy configuration through the extension setting or VS Code's http.proxy setting.
• Checks feed health and can prompt for interactive authentication when a feed requires it.

Cache Folders

• Lists NuGet cache folders from dotnet nuget locals all --list.
• Selects cache folders from the table.
• Opens the selected cache folder in VS Code.
• Recalculates cache folder sizes on demand.
• Can calculate cache folder sizes automatically on load when configured.
• Clears selected cache folders.
• Persists calculated cache sizes.

Logs

• Integrated log tab backed by the extension log buffer.
• Configurable log level and maximum retained entries.
• Toggle timestamp, context, and level columns.
• Filter visible logs by level.
• Enable or disable soft wrap.
• Scroll to end, refresh logs, and clear logs from the UI.

VS Code Integration

• Command palette command: Manage NuGet Packages.
• Explorer context menu entry for solution and project files.
• ReSharper Solution Explorer context menu integration when compatible view items are available.
• Extension settings command from the package manager action rail.

Requirements

• Visual Studio Code 1.100.0 or newer.
• A .NET workspace containing at least one supported solution or project file.
• dotnet available on PATH, or configured through nuget-code.dotnetPath.
• NuGet credential providers when using authenticated feeds that require them.

Commands

Settings

Current Limitations

• NuGet sources are currently read-only in the extension UI.
• Package Manager Console is not implemented yet.
• Package search uses HTTP NuGet V3 feeds; local feeds are used for availability checks where possible.
• Package operations rely on the installed dotnet CLI and its behavior for the selected project or solution.

Development

This repository uses pnpm and a workspace-based package structure.

Common commands:

pnpm install
pnpm run build
pnpm run typecheck
pnpm run lint
pnpm run test

Additional commands:

pnpm run dev
pnpm run format

Project Direction

The goal is not to clone Rider feature-for-feature. The goal is to bring the parts of Rider's NuGet Package Manager experience that make sense in VS Code while fitting VS Code's extension model and .NET tooling constraints.

License

Licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for details.