Arcturus.DevHost.SourceGenerator 2026.3.9.271

Arcturus.DevHost.SourceGenerator

A C# source generator that automatically generates strongly-typed project metadata classes from a list of project references.

Overview

This source generator reads a ProjectReferences.txt file during compilation and generates C# classes that implement IProjectMetadata for each project reference. This enables type-safe access to project metadata at compile-time and runtime, which is particularly useful for development orchestration scenarios.

What It Does

The generator performs the following operations:

1. Reads Project References: Parses a ProjectReferences.txt file that contains tab-delimited project information
2. Generates Classes: Creates a class for each project that implements Arcturus.DevHost.Hosting.Abstracts.IProjectMetadata
3. Provides Metadata: Each generated class exposes:
   • ProjectPath: The full path to the project file
   • ProjectName: A sanitized, valid C# identifier name for the project

Input Format

The generator expects a ProjectReferences.txt file with the following tab-delimited format:

<column1>\t<ProjectDisplayName>\t<ProjectFilePath>

• Column 1: Reserved/unused
• Column 2: The display name of the project (will be sanitized to create a valid C# class name)
• Column 3: The full path to the project file

Generated Code

For each line in ProjectReferences.txt, the generator creates a class like:

public class ProjectDisplayName : global::Arcturus.DevHost.Hosting.Abstracts.IProjectMetadata
{
    public string ProjectPath => "C:\\Path\\To\\Project.csproj";
    public string ProjectName => "ProjectDisplayName";
}

All generated classes are placed in the Projects namespace and output to Projects.g.cs.

Name Sanitization

Project names are sanitized to create valid C# identifiers:

• Spaces, dots, and hyphens are replaced with underscores
• Names starting with digits are prefixed with an underscore

Versioning

The generator respects the following MSBuild properties for versioning (in order of precedence):

1. Version
2. AssemblyVersion
3. PackageVersion
4. Falls back to "1.0.0" if none are specified

Usage

1. Add the Arcturus.DevHost.SourceGenerator NuGet package to your project
2. Create a ProjectReferences.txt file in your project
3. Set the build action for the file to AdditionalFiles
4. Build your project - the generator will automatically create the Projects.g.cs file

Requirements

• .NET Standard 2.0 or higher
• Roslyn 4.8.0 or compatible version

Integration

This generator is designed to work with the Arcturus DevHost ecosystem, particularly for orchestrating development environments where you need programmatic access to project metadata.