Beginner Question - Existing Solutions with TFS

I’m looking at different products for automating the deployment side, while using TFS to do the builds.

I am not familiar with NuGet, other than some basics that I’ve read. What I’m not clear on is if I have to change the solution/projects to be able to generate a NuGet package? The instructions on Octopus Deploy says to download an add-on for Visual Studio and incorporate into the solution.

If I have to change 100’s of solutions to be able to use Octopus Deploy, I’m not seeing this product as an option.

What I am expecting is to be able to point to the published files from TFS. If Octopus Deploy only supports NuGet package types, then I guess I would be open to creating a custom code activity to package it up as one, but back to the question, can it be done via a command line or API “automatically” or does it have to be embedded into the Visual Studio project?

Thanks,

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for getting in touch. The only Visual Studio add-in involved is NuGet from Microsoft, which should be included out-of-the-box on VS 2012.

To package your application into a NuGet package (which is just a ZIP file with a manifest), there are two options:

  1. You could call NuGet.exe pack to create the package, using the information on our packaging page as a guide.
  2. You could install the OctoPack NuGet package into your main project (e.g., your web application project) and have OctoPack take care of it.

Using OctoPack is optional but it does make the process easier.

I wrote a blog post which demonstrates how to use Octopus Deploy with TFS Preview but the instructions should apply to a standalone TFS server too.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions.

Paul