SlnGen is a Visual Studio solution file generator. Visual Studio solutions generally do not scale well for large project trees. They are scoped views of a set of projects. Enterprise-level builds use custom logic like traversal to convey how they should be built by a hosted build environment. Maintaining Visual Studio solutions becomes hard because you have to keep them in sync with the other build logic. Instead, SlnGen reads the project references of a given project to create a Visual Studio solution on demand. For example, you can run it against a unit test project and be presented with a Visual Studio solution containing the unit test project and all of its project references. You can also run SlnGen against a traversal project in a rooted folder to open a Visual Studio solution containing that view of your project tree.

To install SlnGen, run the following command:

dotnet tool install --global Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlnGen.Tool

Once installed, .NET Core will add slngen to your PATH so you can run it from any command window:

slngen --help

More documentation is available at https://microsoft.github.io/slngen/.

The MSBuild target must be installed as a NuGet package and restored. This can slow down the process so a .NET Core tool might be preferable.

Install the package to an individual project (not recommended):

 Install-Package Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlnGen

Or add it your Directory.Build.props:

<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.SlnGen" Version="<Latest Version>" />
</ItemGroup>

Generate and open a Visual Studio solution with MSBuild:

> MSBuild /Restore /t:SlnGen

You can also create a DOSKEY alias as a shortcut

> doskey slngen=msbuild /nologo /v:m /t:slngen

More documentation is available at https://microsoft.github.io/slngen/.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

The software may collect information about you and your use of the software and send it to Microsoft. Microsoft may use this information to provide services and improve our products and services. You may turn off the telemetry as described in the repository. There are also some features in the software that may enable you and Microsoft to collect data from users of your applications. If you use these features, you must comply with applicable law, including providing appropriate notices to users of your applications together with a copy of Microsoft's privacy statement. Our privacy statement is located at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=824704. You can learn more about data collection and use in the help documentation and our privacy statement. Your use of the software operates as your consent to these practices.

To opt-out of data collection, please do so by disabling the Visual Studio Customer Experience Improvement Program