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MSBuildStructuredLog

A logger for MSBuild that records a structured representation of executed targets, tasks, property and item values. It can greatly simplify build investigations and provides a portable log interchange format (*.binlog) and a rich interactive log viewer app.

Build status NuGet package Chocolatey

Homepage: https://msbuildlog.com

View binlogs in the Browser: https://live.msbuildlog.com

Important: the NuGet package is now being published to https://nuget.org/packages/MSBuild.StructuredLogger (old location: https://nuget.org/packages/Microsoft.Build.Logging.StructuredLogger). Please update to use the new Package Id.

Thanks to SignPath.io for providing a free code signing service and to the SignPath Foundation for a free code signing certificate to sign the installer.

Install:

Install from https://msbuildlog.com.

The app updates automatically via Squirrel (after launch it checks for updates in background), next launch starts the newly downloaded latest version.

Screenshot1

Installing the Avalonia version on Mac:

There are a couple of extra steps to get the .app running on macOS since it's currently distributed as an unsigned application:

  1. In System Preferences -> Security & Privacy ensure Allow apps downloaded from: is set to App Store and identified developers.
  2. Download the StructuredLogViewer-x64.zip (if on Intel Mac) or Structured.Log.Viewer-arm64.zip (if on M1/ARM) from the latest Release.
  3. If necessary, unzip the file (Safari does this for you after downloading automatically).
  4. Move the StructuredLogViewer.app into your Applications folder.
  5. In terminal run: chmod +x StructuredLogViewer.app/Contents/MacOS/StructuredLogViewer.Avalonia to give the app execution permissions
  6. In terminal run: codesign -s- --deep StructuredLogViewer.app to work around notarization issues
  7. On the first run, right click the app on Finder and select Open. You will be prompted that the app is not signed by a known developer. Click Open.

Building & Running the Avalonia version on Mac:

git clone https://github.com/KirillOsenkov/MSBuildStructuredLog
cd MSBuildStructuredLog
./run.sh

Alternatively, a longer version:

  1. dotnet build MSBuildStructuredLog.Avalonia.sln
  2. dotnet publish MSBuildStructuredLog.Avalonia.sln --self-contained -o <some_dir> (I used $HOME/tools/artifacts/StructuredLogViewer.Avalonia)
  3. make a script $HOME/bin/structured-log-viewer (or whatever's on your PATH):
#! /bin/sh
exec dotnet ${HOME}/tools/artifacts/StructuredLogViewer.Avalonia/publish/StructuredLogViewer.Avalonia.dll "$@"

Requirements:

Windows:

Mac:

Usage:

Starting with MSBuild 15.3 you can pass the new /bl switch to msbuild.exe to record a binary build log to msbuild.binlog, in the same folder as the project/solution being built:

Screenshot

or you can build the solution or open an existing log file through the viewer app:

Screenshot2

Alternatively (useful for older versions of MSBuild) you can attach the logger to any MSBuild-based build using the logger library: StructuredLogger.dll. It is available in a NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/MSBuild.StructuredLogger

msbuild solution.sln /t:Rebuild /v:diag /noconlog /logger:BinaryLogger,%localappdata%\MSBuildStructuredLogViewer\app-2.1.596\StructuredLogger.dll;1.binlog

To use a portable version of the logger (e.g. with the dotnet msbuild command) you need a .NET Standard version of StructuredLogger.dll, not the .NET Framework (Desktop) version.

Download this NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/MSBuild.StructuredLogger/2.1.545 and inside it there's the lib\netstandard2.0\StructuredLogger.dll. Try passing that to dotnet build like this:

dotnet msbuild Some.sln /v:diag /nologo /logger:BinaryLogger,"packages\MSBuild.StructuredLogger.2.1.545\lib\netstandard2.0\StructuredLogger.dll";"C:\Users\SomeUser\Desktop\binarylog.binlog"

Read more about the log formats here: https://github.com/KirillOsenkov/MSBuildStructuredLog/wiki/Log-Format

Features:

Investigating problems with MSBuildStructuredLog

Open an issue if you're running into something weird and I can take a look into it. If MSBuildStructuredLog crashes during the build, it will attempt to write the exception call stack to:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\MSBuildStructuredLog\LoggerExceptions.txt

MSBuild Resources