PackCheck 4.2.2

PackCheck

Check for newer versions of installed NuGet Packages in your Terminal.

PackCheck is a dotnet tool for checking versions of installed NuGet packages in your .NET projects in your terminal. The check command (default) shows you all NuGet packages in a nice table with the current, latest stable and latest versions of each package. You can upgrade the .csproj (or Directory.Packages.props if you use Central Package Management) file with the upgrade command to your desired target versions. Whether to the latest stable or latest version, only a specific package or all at once.

Installation

You can install PackCheck as a dotnet tool via NuGet:

# Install
dotnet tool install --global PackCheck

# Update
dotnet tool update --global PackCheck

Usage

In your terminal cd into a .NET project or .NET solution and run:

packcheck

# or

packcheck c

# or

packcheck check

This should give you something like this:

If you also want to see the latest version, which includes prereleases, use the --pre flag:

packcheck --pre

This should give you something like this:

To check versions of a file-based app you need to provide the path to the file:

packcheck --fbaFile app.cs

After that you can upgrade the package versions in the .csproj file (or .csproj files in a solution, the Directory.Packages.props file or the given file-based app file) to their corresponding stable versions by running:

This changes your .csproj file(s) or the Directory.Packages.props or the provided file-based app file!

packcheck upgrade

# or

packcheck u

# For file-based app you need to provide the path to the file
packcheck u --fbaFile app.cs

To upgrade to the latest versions run:

packcheck upgrade --target latest

# or

packcheck u --target latest

For a dry-run, which outputs the .csproj file (or the Directory.Packages.props, or the changes of a file-based app file) into the terminal without actually changing the file, run:

packcheck upgrade --dry-run

# or

packcheck u --dry-run

To use interactive mode, where you can select each package you want to upgrade, run:

packcheck upgrade -i

# or

packcheck u -i

# or to upgrade to the latest versions

packcheck u --target latest -i

To select packages which should be checked or upgraded, run:

packcheck --filter "NuGet.Version" -f "Microsoft.Logging"

# or use a wildcard

packcheck --filter "Microsoft.*"

To exclude packages which should not be checked or upgraded, run:

packcheck --exclude "NuGet.Version" -x "Microsoft.Logging"

# or use a wildcard

packcheck --exclude "Microsoft.*"

To format the output of the check command, use the --format option. Currently only group is supported, which groups the packages by patch, minor and major versions.

packcheck --format group

To show the latest versions in the output of the check command, use the --pre option, otherwise only the current and latest stable columns will be shown.

packcheck --pre

If the installed version is a prerelease and there is no newer stable version yet, the latest stable column shows the newest prerelease. That is the version packcheck upgrade upgrades to.

Output for scripts and LLM agents

With --output json or --output markdown, check and upgrade print only the result, as one document: no progress bar, no status lines and no hints. This makes PackCheck easy to use from scripts, CI jobs and LLM agents.

packcheck --output json

{
  "command": "check",
  "files": [
    {
      "path": "src/App/App.csproj",
      "packages": [
        {
          "name": "NuGet.Protocol",
          "currentVersion": "6.2.1",
          "latestStableVersion": "7.6.0",
          "latestVersion": "7.6.0",
          "upgradeType": "major"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "error": null
}

• check lists the outdated packages of each file. upgradeType is major, minor or patch and follows --pre and --target, like the table.
• upgrade lists the upgraded packages with currentVersion and newVersion, plus target and dryRun. With --dry-run, no file is changed and the document shows what would change. --interactive cannot be combined with --output json or markdown.
• Paths are relative to the current directory. A file without anything to do has an empty packages list.
• On an error, error contains the message and the exit code is -1. Otherwise error is null and the exit code is 0.
• --output markdown prints the same as Markdown tables, one section per file, e.g. for pull request comments or job summaries.
• --format group also groups the Markdown output, with a ### Patch / ### Minor / ### Major section per file. It does not change the JSON document, where each package already has its upgradeType.

Configuration

You can configure PackCheck via a .packcheckrc.{json} file. Example:

{
  "CsProjFile": "path/to/Project.csproj",
  "SlnFile": "path/to/Project.sln",
  "SlnxFile": "path/to/Project.slnx",
  "CpmFile": "path/to/Directory.Packages.props",
  "FbaFile": "path/to/file-based-app.cs",
  "Filter": ["NuGet.Version", "Microsoft.*"],
  "Exclude": ["Microsoft.Logging", "Telerik.*"],
  "Format": "group",
  "Pre": true,
  "Output": "json"
}

Filter supports wildcard patterns via * or %, for example "Microsoft.*" to include all Microsoft packages. Exclude supports wildcard patterns via * or %, for example "Telerik.*" to exclude all Telerik packages. Both ignore case, like NuGet package IDs.

For help run:

packcheck -h

Color Highlighting

LICENSE

MIT