Running PowerShell scripts during NuGet package installation and removal

Your NuGet package can contain PowerShell scripts which, based on a convention, will be called during the package installation/removal process.

• Init.ps1 runs the first time a package is installed in a solution
• Install.ps1 runs when a package is installed in a project <- no longer supported in Visual Studio 2017 (read more)
• Uninstall.ps1 runs every time a package is uninstalled <- no longer supported in Visual Studio 2017 (read more)
• you can read more about it here

Your scripts should begin with the following line

param($installPath, $toolsPath, $package, $project)

Where

• $installPath path to where the project is installed
• $toolsPath path to the extracted tools directory
• $package information about the currently installing package
• $project reference to the EnvDTE project the package is being installed into

In order to be executed, the scripts need to be included in the tools directory of the nuget package. You can achieve this by editing your *.nuspec file and adding a file reference.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<package >
  <metadata>...</metadata>
  <files>
	<file src="scripts\NugetScripts\Install.ps1" target="tools\Install.ps1" />
  </files>
</package>

You will quickly find debugging to be fairly painful if you need to operate with the $project reference. In this case, you are highly encouraged to test all your $project actions in the Visual Studio Package Manager Console by writing

$project = Get-Project

Now you can interactively test your operations in the console, and you don’t have to constantly pack and install/uninstall your package to check if the scripts work as intended.