Individual skill

target-authoring

Canonical patterns for writing custom MSBuild targets. USE FOR: diagnosing and fixing custom target authoring anti-patterns; broken SDK target chains across files (e.g., Directory.Build.targets silently redefining SDK targets); targets that replace CompileDependsOn instead of extending it with $(CompileDependsOn); query targets returning stale results from Outputs vs Returns misuse; missing Inputs/Outputs causing unnecessary rebuilds; missing FileWrites registration. Covers DependsOnTargets vs BeforeTargets vs AfterTargets, the Build→CoreBuild three-level pattern, and the $(XxxDependsOn) chain-extension pattern. DO NOT USE FOR: incremental build tuning (use incremental-build), parallelization (use build-parallelism), general anti-patterns (use msbuild-antipatterns), non-MSBuild build systems.

plugins/dotnet-msbuild/skills/target-authoring/SKILL.md

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Repository stars (not skill ratings): 5,851
Repository last updated: Nov 8, 2026
License: MIT

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# Custom Target Authoring Patterns

Canonical patterns from `Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets` in the MSBuild repository.

## The Three-Level Target Chain

Every major entry point (Build, Rebuild, Clean) delegates to a **property** listing its dependencies, which chains through Before → Core → After:

```xml
<PropertyGroup>
  <BuildDependsOn>
    BeforeBuild;
    CoreBuild;
    AfterBuild