Dotnet Local Tools

This walks you through setting up .NET local tools with dotnet-tools.json so your entire team and CI pipeline use the exact same versions of tools like dotnet-ef, docfx, or reportgenerator. Instead of having everyone install tools globally and hope versions match, you commit the manifest and run dotnet tool restore. The guide covers the JSON structure, common tools like Entity Framework migrations and code coverage generators, and CI integration for GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines. The best practices section pushes hard on pinning exact versions with rollForward false, which is the right call if you care about reproducible builds. It's thorough on the global versus local distinction and why you'd want tools scoped per repository instead of machine wide.

skills.sh installs: 550
GitHub stars: 1.3K
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

View on GitHub

Install

$ npx -y skills add aaronontheweb/dotnet-skills --skill dotnet-local-tools --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

.NET Local Tools

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

Setting up consistent tooling across a development team
Ensuring CI/CD pipelines use the same tool versions as local development
Managing project-specific CLI tools (docfx, incrementalist, dotnet-ef, etc.)
Avoiding global tool version conflicts between projects

What Are Local Tools?

Local tools are .NET CLI tools that are installed and versioned per-repository rather than globally. They're defined in .config/dotnet-tools.json and restored with dotnet tool restore.

Local vs Global Tools

Aspect	Global Tools	Local Tools
Installation	`dotnet tool install -g`	`dotnet tool restore`
Scope	Machine-wide	Per-repository
Version control	Manual	In `.config/dotnet-tools.json`
CI/CD	Must install each tool	Single restore command
Conflicts	Can have version conflicts	Isolated per project

Setting Up Local Tools

Initialize the Manifest

# Create .config/dotnet-tools.json
dotnet new tool-manifest

This creates:

.config/
└── dotnet-tools.json

Install Tools Locally

SKILL.md on GitHub

Details

Repository: github.com/aaronontheweb/dotnet-skills
Categories: DevOps & CI/CD, .NET & C#
First seen: Jun 3, 2026