Microsoft.Build (MSBuild)

The Microsoft Build Engine is a platform for building applications. This engine, also known as MSBuild, provides an XML schema for a project file that controls how the build platform processes and builds software. Visual Studio uses MSBuild, but MSBuild can run without Visual Studio. By invoking msbuild.exe on your project or solution file, you can orchestrate and build products in environments where Visual Studio isn't installed.

For more information on MSBuild, see the MSBuild documentation on learn.microsoft.com.

The changelog has detailed information about changes made in different releases.

Building

Building MSBuild with Visual Studio 2026 on Windows

For the full supported experience, use the latest Visual Studio 2026.

To get started with Visual Studio 2026:

1. Install Visual Studio 2026 with the components listed in .vsconfig:
   • .NET desktop development workload
2. Install .NET Framework 3.5. A full MSBuild build includes outputs that require this.
3. Ensure long path support is enabled at the Windows level.
4. Open a Developer Command Prompt for VS 2026 prompt.
5. Clone the source code: git clone https://github.com/dotnet/msbuild
   • You may have to download Git first.
6. Run .\build.cmd from the root of the repo to build the code. This also restores packages needed to open the projects in Visual Studio.
7. Open MSBuild.slnx or MSBuild.Dev.slnf in Visual Studio 2026.

This newly-built MSBuild will be located at artifacts\bin\bootstrap\net472\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe. It may not work for all scenarios, including C++ builds.

Building MSBuild in Unix (Mac & Linux)

MSBuild can be run on Unix systems that support .NET Core. Set-up instructions can be viewed on the wiki: Building Testing and Debugging on .Net Core MSBuild

Localization

You can turn on localized builds via the /p:LocalizedBuild=true command line argument. For more information on localized builds and how to make contributions to MSBuild's translations, see our localization documentation

Interested in contributing?

Before you contribute, please read through the contributing and developer guides to get an idea of what kinds of pull requests we accept.

• Contributing Guide

• Developer Guide on:

  • .NET Core
  • Full Framework

• See our help wanted issues for a list of issues we think are great to onboard new developers.

  • Note: Please leave a comment asking to be assigned the issue if you want to work on it.

• See our label documentation for descriptions of labels we use throughout the repo.

Other ways to contribute

We encourage any contributions you decide to make to the repo!

• File an issue
• Start a discussion

MSBuild Components

• MSBuild. Microsoft.Build.CommandLine is the entrypoint for the Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild.exe).

• Microsoft.Build. The Microsoft.Build namespaces contain types that provide programmatic access to, and control of, the MSBuild engine.

• Microsoft.Build.Framework. The Microsoft.Build.Framework namespace contains the types that define how tasks and loggers interact with the MSBuild engine. For additional information on this component, see our Microsoft.Build.Framework wiki page.

• Microsoft.Build.Tasks. The Microsoft.Build.Tasks namespace contains the implementation of all tasks shipping with MSBuild.

• Microsoft.Build.Utilities. The Microsoft.Build.Utilities namespace provides helper classes that you can use to create your own MSBuild loggers and tasks.

License

MSBuild is licensed under the MIT license.