Skip to content

How do I add a build script to the project?

FAKE

Fake is a DSL for build tasks that is modular, extensible and easy to start with. Fake allows you to easily build, bundle, deploy your app and more by executing a single command.

The standard template comes with a FAKE script by default, and this recipe only applies to the minimal template.

Paket

Before moving on, we recommend migrating to Paket. In fact, this is a prerequisite for this recipe. It is possible to use FAKE without Paket by creating an executable instead of a script file, however this will not be covered in this recipe.

If you’re not using Paket to handle your dependencies, go through the Migrate to Paket recipe before continuing.

1. The Build Dependencies

Paste the following at the end of your paket.dependencies file, which is at the root of the solution. 

group Build
    source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
    framework: netstandard2.0
    storage: none

    nuget FSharp.Core
    nuget Fake.Core.Target
    nuget Fake.DotNet.Cli
    nuget Fake.IO.FileSystem
Then, execute paket install to install these dependencies.

2. Fake CLI Tool

Run the following commands at the root folder of your solution to install FAKE as a local tool: 

dotnet tool install fake-cli
dotnet tool restore

3. The Build Script

Add an F# script file to the root folder of your solution named build.fsx and paste the following code into it. The script builds and publishes the client and server applications in their production / release modes, and copies the outputs of both into a deploy folder at the root of the repository.

To learn more about targets and FAKE in general, see Getting Started with FAKE. 

#r "paket: groupref build //"
#load "./.fake/build.fsx/intellisense.fsx"
#r "netstandard"

open Fake.Core
open Fake.Core.TargetOperators
open Fake.DotNet
open Fake.IO

Target.initEnvironment ()

let serverPath = Path.getFullName "./src/Server"
let clientPath = Path.getFullName "./src/Client"
let deployDir = Path.getFullName "./deploy"

let npm args workingDir =
    let npmPath = ProcessUtils.tryFindFileOnPath "npm" |> Option.get
    let arguments = args |> String.split ' ' |> Arguments.OfArgs

    Command.RawCommand (npmPath, arguments)
    |> CreateProcess.fromCommand
    |> CreateProcess.withWorkingDirectory workingDir
    |> CreateProcess.ensureExitCode
    |> Proc.run
    |> ignore

let dotnet cmd workingDir = DotNet.exec (DotNet.Options.withWorkingDirectory workingDir) cmd ""

Target.create "Bundle" (fun _ ->
    Shell.cleanDir deployDir
    npm "install" clientPath
    dotnet (sprintf "publish -c Release -o \"%s\"" deployDir) serverPath
    npm "run build" clientPath
)

"Clean"
    ==> "InstallClient"
    ==> "Bundle"

Target.runOrDefaultWithArguments "Bundle"

4. Build the Application

You can now build your application by running the following command at the root directory of your solution: 

dotnet fake build