To create your own plugin you have only to make sure to follow 3 simple principles:

1. Make sure you support netstandard2.0 or if absolutely needed netstandard2.1
2. Provide extension methods for custom configuration
3. Provide an auto install mode that is configurable

1. Create a project

Because there is nothing special about a custom plugin, we start with a simple classlib project:

dotnet new classlib -o MyTastyPlugin
cd MyTastyPlugin

Add a reference to Xenial.Tasty.Core.

dotnet add package Xenial.Tasty.Core

At the time of writing there is no Xenial.Tasty.Core yet. Just use Xenial.Tasty for now

Tasty uses semver and tries to be binary compatible. So in your csproj file you should specify the version as floating:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <!-- Because Tasty is not stable yet, we support 0.x.x -->
    <!-- Later on this should be 1.* for 1.x.x or 2.* for 2.x.x -->
    <PackageReference Include="Xenial.Tasty.Core" Version="0.*" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

2. Write an extension method

We should place all plugin entry points into the same namespace: Xenial.Delicious.Plugins

using Xenial.Delicious.Scopes;

namespace Xenial.Delicious.Plugins
{
    public static class MyTastyPlugin
    {
        public static TastyScope UseMyTastyPlugin(this TastyScope scope)
        {
            //Hook into several extension points
            return scope;
        }
    }
}

3. Provide auto install mode

Because there is no plugin discovery, Tasty does only a lookup in the entry assembly for a TastyPluginAttribute that communicates the entry point. To make the lives for our plugin users easier, we should provide some MSBuild magic.

We need to create a build folder:

mkdir build

Inside we need 3 files MyTastyPluginAssemblyInfo.cs, MyTastyPlugin.props and MyTastyPlugin.targets:

MyTastyPluginAssemblyInfo.cs:

[assembly: Xenial.Delicious.Plugins.TastyPlugin(
    typeof(Xenial.Delicious.Plugins.MyTastyPlugin),
    nameof(Xenial.Delicious.Plugins.MyTastyPlugin.UseMyTastyPlugin)
)]

MyTastyPlugin.props:

<Project>

  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- We should follow the convention starting with UseTastyXXX here -->
    <UseTastyMyTastyPlugin>true</UseTastyMyTastyPlugin>
  </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

MyTastyPlugin.targets:

<Project>

  <Target Name="AddUseTastyMyTastyPlugin" BeforeTargets="CoreGenerateAssemblyInfo" Condition="$(UseTastyMyTastyPlugin)">
    <ItemGroup>
      <Compile Include="$(MSBuildThisFileDirectory)MyTastyPluginAssemblyInfo.cs" Visible="false" />
    </ItemGroup>
  </Target>

</Project>

This will automatically register your plugin in a project if your nuget package is used:

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="MyTastyPlugin" Version="x.x.x" />
  </ItemGroup>

Endusers will be able to prevent your plugin from be automatically registered by using the MSBuild property.

  <PropertyGroup>
    <!-- Disable auto registration -->
    <UseTastyMyTastyPlugin>false</UseTastyMyTastyPlugin>
  </PropertyGroup>

There is currently no easy way to automatically register project references. So you should use either the extension methods or create a nuget package.

4. Pack the plugin

There is nothing special about the nuget itself, so use the normal way of packing and distributing your package:

dotnet pack

Congratulations

You learned about creating your own delicious plugin!