(ES|MS)Build

ESBuild.MSBuild is a NuGet package which wraps esbuild, enabling frontend builds without Node or NPM.

Usage

Add a package reference and ESBuild items to your csproj. Each entry point will be bundled and converted into a Content item, which will be published and (if you are using ASP.NET Core) included as a static web asset, accessible at _content/<Your.Project.Name>/<bundle.name>. Example:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>net7.0</TargetFramework>
    </PropertyGroup>
    
    <ItemGroup>
        <PackageReference Include="ESBuild.MSBuild" Version="0.19.5.*" />
        <ESBuild Include="index.ts" Minify="true" />
        <ESBuild Include="app.css" />
        <ESBuild Include="global/*.css" Group="global.css" />
    </ItemGroup>
</Project>

API

For more complex scenarios, these MSBuild properties are available.

Property	Default	Description	Purpose
ESBuildBinaryPath	Platform-specific.	Location of esbuild or esbuild.exe.	For low-level integration - use it to run esbuild yourself, or change it to run a custom version.
ESBuildEcho	False	Whether to log esbuild invocations.	Set to true to display generated commandlines.
ESBuildIntermediatePath	obj/$(Configuration)/esbuild/	Location to write generated bundles.	Can be changed if you want to store the bundles or distribute them out-of-band.
ESBuildWebRoot	wwwroot/	Virtual path of generated Content items.	Provides static web assets integration and the output path used for dotnet publish.

Bundling can be configured with properties or item metadata

Global property	Item metadata	Default	Description
n/a	Group	None.	ESBuild items with the same Group will be concatenated together before bundling.
ESBuildArguments	Arguments	None.	Overrides all other config. (See esbuild docs.)
ESBuildBundle	Bundle	True	Inline any imported dependencies into the output file.
ESBuildExternals	Externals	None	Semicolon-separated list of external packages that don't require resolution.
ESBuildFormat	Format	Automatic.	iife, esm or cjs.
ESBuildMinify	Minify	True in Release configuration.	Rewrite syntax to be more compact. Takes advantage of all features allowed by Targets.
ESBuildPlatform	Platform	browser	browser, node or neutral.
ESBuildTargets	Targets	esnext	Semicolon-separated list of required support levels. (Unlike --targets, which is comma-separated).
ESBuildTreeShaking	TreeShaking	Automatic.	True to force-enable or False to force-disable dead code elimination.

Platforms

The package contains esbuild binaries for MacOS, Windows and Linux (glibc), on AMD64 and ARM64.

Versions

The first three digits of the package version are the version of the included esbuild, and the fourth digit is the package build number.