MSBuild: How to Future-Proof Import Project Path? - powershell

Question

A similar question was asked a few years ago, but I'm wondering if anything has changed in the interim or if folks have new ideas how to do this.
I've imported MSBuildTasks (MSBuild Community Tasks) as a Nuget package into a project within my solution. I can define a property for the path to the .targets file as follows:
<PropertyGroup>
<MSBuildTasks>$(SolutionDir)Packages\MSBuildTasks.1.5.0.235\tools\MSBuild.Community.Tasks.Targets</MSBuildTasks>
</PropertyGroup>
... and then import it using:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildTasks)"/>
Of course, I may choose to update the package at a later date in which case the folder name changes, so I'd prefer to avoid hard-coding the version number. One way I thought of to avoid this was to have a powershell script look for the latest version:
function Find-PackagePath
{
[CmdletBinding()]
param(
[Parameter(Position=0,Mandatory=1)]$packagesPath,
[Parameter(Position=1,Mandatory=1)]$packageName
)
return (Get-ChildItem ($packagesPath + "\" + $packageName + "*")).FullName | Sort-Object $_ | select -Last 1
}
... and inject that as a command-line property for MSBuild:
msbuild $solutionFile "/p:Configuration=$buildConfiguration;Platform=$buildPlatform;MSBuildTasks=$MSBuildTasks";
I can confirm with a message that the injected path is indeed transmitted to my target:
<Target Name="_ReportMSBuildTasksPath" BeforeTargets="_ComputeSemanticVersion">
<Message Text="MSBUILDTASKS = $(MSBuildTasks)"/>
</Target>
... but if I try to import using the same import statement above, I get the following error message:
The value "" of the "Project" attribute in element <Import> is invalid. Parameter "path" cannot have zero length.
This is where I run out of ideas. How can I avoid hard-coding the version number in the tools path?

Answer 1

I found it strange that you need to manually import something.
MSBuildTasks NuGet package includes build\MSBuildTasks.targets. And Visual Studio should automatically add import of this file into your .csproj file.
And this import path is maintained by NuGet Package Manager in the Visual Studio.
So, you should just be able to use the tasks you need without importing anything manually.
If it does not work, then please check that .csproj file really includes autogenerated import to proper .targets file mentioned above.