Skip to content

Document IsImplicitlyDefined for MSBuild project SDKs #3580

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Draft
donnie-msft wants to merge 4 commits into
base: main
Choose a base branch
from
Draft

Document IsImplicitlyDefined for MSBuild project SDKs #3580

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
4 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
1f69a65
Document IsImplicitlyDefined for MSBuild project SDKs
donnie-msft Jun 12, 2026
de947d8
Reword
donnie-msft Jun 12, 2026
92bee1d
Condense
donnie-msft Jun 12, 2026
42965ee
Condense NU1504
donnie-msft Jun 12, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
13 changes: 13 additions & 0 deletions docs/consume-packages/Package-References-in-Project-Files.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -261,6 +261,19 @@ namespace PackageReferenceAliasesExample

```

## IsImplicitlyDefined metadata

MSBuild project SDKs sometimes inject `<PackageReference>` items on the consumer's behalf — for example, the .NET SDK injects framework packs such as `Microsoft.NETCore.App`. SDKs mark these references with `IsImplicitlyDefined="true"` so NuGet knows they're owned by the SDK rather than authored by the project:

```xml
<PackageReference Include="Contoso.SdkPackage" Version="$(ContosoSdkVersion)" IsImplicitlyDefined="true" />
```

End users don't set this metadata on references in their own project files.

- **SDK authors**: Set `IsImplicitlyDefined="true"` on every `<PackageReference>` your SDK injects, and pair it with a documented MSBuild property (for example, `$(ContosoSdkVersion)`) so end users have a supported way to influence the resolved version. This follows the same contract the .NET SDK uses for framework packs such as `Microsoft.NETCore.App`.
- **End users**: Implicitly defined packages appear in the Visual Studio Package Manager UI's **Installed** tab but can't be updated or uninstalled there, and adding a duplicate `<PackageReference>` for the same package id produces [NU1504](../reference/errors-and-warnings/NU1504.md) during restore (from `dotnet`, `msbuild`, or Visual Studio). To change the version, set the property documented by the SDK (for example, `<MSTestVersion>` for `MSTest.Sdk`) or upgrade the SDK.

## NuGet warnings and errors

*This feature is available with NuGet **4.3** or above and with Visual Studio 2017 **15.3** or above.*
Expand Down
2 changes: 2 additions & 0 deletions docs/reference/errors-and-warnings/NU1504.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -40,3 +40,5 @@ Consult the recommendations in the warning message and do one of the following:

- Remove the duplicate items
- Use item `Update` instead of item `Include`
- If you're using an MSBuild project SDK (for example, `MSTest.Sdk`), the SDK's `<PackageReference>` should be marked with `IsImplicitlyDefined="true"` and should not be duplicated by a user-authored reference.
To change its version, set the version property documented by the SDK or upgrade the SDK itself. See [IsImplicitlyDefined metadata](../../consume-packages/package-references-in-project-files.md#isimplicitlydefined-metadata) for more information.