Table of Contents

Workspace Configuration

Place a cstemplate.config.json file in your project folder (or any parent folder) to configure output locations, NuGet package references, and local assembly references. The CLI searches upward from the template file's directory until it finds one, so a single config file can cover an entire project tree.

Schema

{
  "outputRoot": "../generated",
  "project":    "./MyProject.csproj",
  "nugetPackages": [
    "Humanizer.Core",
    "Microsoft.Data.SqlClient"
  ],
  "references": [
    "path/to/LocalAssembly.dll"
  ]
}

Fields

outputRoot

Output directory for generated files, relative to the config file.

If omitted, each template writes to a generated/ folder adjacent to itself. Can be overridden at runtime with the --output CLI argument.

project

Path to the template project's .csproj file, relative to the config file.

Required when nugetPackages is specified. cstemplate reads the project's obj/project.assets.json (generated by dotnet restore) to resolve package versions and transitive dependencies.

Note: Run dotnet restore on the project whenever you add or update NuGet package references. cstemplate will report a clear error if the assets file is missing or out of date.

nugetPackages

An array of NuGet package IDs to make available to templates at compile and execution time.

Specify package IDs only — no versions. Versions are taken from whatever the project has restored. Transitive dependencies are resolved automatically.

"nugetPackages": [
  "Humanizer.Core",
  "Microsoft.Data.SqlClient"
]

Packages with native dependencies (such as Microsoft.Data.SqlClient, which requires the SNI native library) are handled automatically — cstemplate resolves native libraries from the runtimes/ folder of the relevant packages.

references

An array of paths to local .dll assemblies, relative to the config file. Use this to reference assemblies that are not available as NuGet packages.

"references": [
  "../libs/MyLocalLibrary.dll"
]

Discovery

cstemplate searches for cstemplate.config.json by walking up the directory tree from the template file's location. The first file found is used. This means you can:

  • Place a single config at the solution root to apply to all templates
  • Override settings for a specific folder by adding a closer config file

If no config file is found, default behaviour applies: output goes to generated/ next to each template, and no additional references are loaded.

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