[How-To] A guide on how to test (new versions of) your .nuget packages locally

Last week I had to test a new version of a package. The problem was that the package was released on a nuget feed, but to test it properly I had to first test it in another solution.

By creating a local Nuget feed on your development machine, and publishing your nuget package to this feed we can very easily test and work with your package.

Create a local feed

Create a local folder where you want to store your local nuget packages. For example on your C:\ drive.

• Create a new folder called local.nuget

• Open visual studio and navigate to Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Settings
• Navigate to Package Sources and click on the green + button.
• Give it a name and point the directory to your local nuget folder we just created.
• Click Ok

Publish the package to the feed

Now to create the package and publish it to our custom feed.

• Open the project you want to publish and open the .csproj file of the project.

• Change the <version> tag to a version which is easily recognizable. (To avoid caching problems you can use something not easily used in production, such as 99.0.0.)

• Right click the project and click Pack to publish the nuget package to your /bin folder.
  

• Copy the .nupkg to your local nuget folder in C:\local.nuget.

Using the package

• Open the solution that uses the package
• Open the Package manager for this solution
• Navigate to the Browse tab and change the 'Package source' to nuget.local

• Use the new version of the package!

That's all there is to it! ###