SolutionCop and SolutionCop.MSBuild overview

SolutionCop is a tool for analyzing Visual Studio solutions and projects. It covers the gap between FxCop (static analysis of assemblies) and StyleCop (static analysis of source code) and allows to do checks like lost files or unused NuGet packages. This tool is successfully used in several big .NET projects and saved me a lot of time.

SolutionCop.MSBuild allows to run SolutionCop checks during project compilation and detect issues earlier.

Supported rules - see more details for each rule by clicking its name

• Basic rules
  • TargetFrameworkVersion
  • TreatWarningsAsErrors
  • SuppressWarnings
  • WarningLevel
  • FilesIncludedIntoProject - useful rule for finding files lost during refactoring - either files that are not required anymore, but were not deleted or unit tests which are not tracked anymore.
  • TargetFrameworkProfile
  • SameNameForAssemblyAndRootNamespace
• NuGet-related rules
  • NuGetAutomaticPackagesRestore
  • NuGetPackagesUsage
  • ReferenceNuGetPackagesOnly - very useful to detect when reference switches from NuGet binary to raw binaries in Bin/Debug. Hard to notice, but may cause weird hard-to-understand side effects.
  • NuGetPackageVersions - super-useful if you have large project or set of projects and want to control all changes for external dependencies - here all dependencies and versions will be in a single file, which helps a lot.
  • SameNuGetPackageVersions - one more useful rule to avoid partial NuGet upgrades when only some projects were upgraded. It may also cause strange side effects.
  • NuspecHasTheSameVersionsWithPackagesConfig - checks, that nuspec file has the same version dependencies with solution's packages
  • NuGetMandatoryPackage - checks that all projects use specific package - e.g. mandatory pack of code analyzers
• StyleCop-related rules
  • StyleCopEnabled
  • TreatStyleCopWarningsAsErrors

How to use SolutionCop

1. Install SolutionCop via command line NuGet.exe Install SolutionCop or (for brave ones) via NuGet.exe Install SolutionCop -Prerelease.
2. Launch SolutionCop once in command line: SolutionCop.exe -s MySolution.sln it will automatically create SolutionCop.xml file next to MySolution.sln. All rules in this config file will be disabled. Now you can enable rules in config file and launch SolutionCop checks:

SolutionCop.exe -s MySolution.sln -c SolutionCop.xml [-b TeamCity] [--build-server-no-success-messages]

I recommend to enabled rules gradually, especially if you have large project.

How to use SolutionCop.MSBuild

1. Install SolutionCop (see instruction above) and generate rules for your solution
2. Install SolutionCop.MSBuild NuGet package into every VS project you want to check and watch for errors in build output. Some notes:

• SolutionCop.MSBuild doesn't allow to specify path to config file - instead it looks for SolutionCop.xml file in parent folders starting with folder where .csproj file is defined. Once config file is found logic is the same as in SolutionCop.
• SameNuGetPackageVersions rule won't work in SolutionCop.MSBuild because tool processes each project separately, so has no chance to compare package versions between different projects.
• To see more detailed output select verbose MSBuild output level in VS settings

TODO - Rules (in priority order)

• Check for "Copy Local" used
• Classify project by type (e.g. production, testing) and disallow references between some project types
• Proper owner in AssemblyInfo (can it be done via FxCop?)
• Proper copyright date in AssemblyInfo (can it be done via FxCop?)

TODO - Other

• Option to fail on missing sections instead of creating them
• Provide links to rule details in output
• Move error messages to resources