Introduction

GitHub packages registries is most popular now a days. It offers different packages registries for most used package managers, such as NuGet, npm, Docker etc. In this article, I will show you how to host a .net core NuGet Package in GitHub Packages Registry.

Tools and Technology uses

• Visual Studio 2022
• .NET 6
• C#
• GitHub

Implementation

Step 1: Create a personal access token (PAT) from GitHub

• Login into you GitHub
• Go to settings -> Developer Settings -> Personal Access Tokens
• Click “Generate new token” button
• Type Note for the token, expiration days

• Select scope for the token – here I have selected repo, write:packages, delete:packages as shown below.

  

• Now click “Generate Toke” at the bottom of the panel

• Copy the token and store the token for further use because you cannot find it later

  

Step 2: Add Nuget Source in visual studio

• Type the following command to add source

dotnet nuget add source https://nuget.pkg.github.com/hbolajraf/index.json --name github-hbolajraf --username hbolajraf --password <Your personal Access Token>

• You will see a source is added in C:\Users\hbolajraf\AppData\Roaming\NuGet\NuGet.Config file

• Optional: You can also add source from visual studio Tools -> Options -> NuGet Package Manager -> Package Sources
• Restart visual studio to get new nuget package source

Step 3: Create a class library to publish in GitHub Packages

• Create a class library name – ‘CryptoEngine”
• Create a class CryptoGenerator as follows

    using System.Security.Cryptography;
    using System.Text;
    
    namespace CryptoEngine
    {
        public class CryptoGenerator
        {
            public static string GenerateSha256Hash(string plainText)
            {
                // Create a SHA256   
                using (SHA256 sha256Hash = SHA256.Create())
                {
                    // ComputeHash - returns byte array  
                    byte[] bytes = sha256Hash.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(plainText));
    
                    // Convert byte array to a string   
                    StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
                    for (int i = 0; i < bytes.Length; i++)
                    {
                        builder.Append(bytes[i].ToString("x2"));
                    }
                    return builder.ToString();
                }
            }
        }
    }

• Click right button on class library project -> Package -> General
• Mark “Produce a package file during build operations”
• Type Package ID, Package Version, Authors, Company, Product, Description
• Type repository URL – A github repository and save
• Now you will see the csproj file as follows

CryptoEngine.csproj

    <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">    
      <PropertyGroup>
        <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
        <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
        <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
        <GeneratePackageOnBuild>True</GeneratePackageOnBuild>
        <PackageId>hbolajraf.CryptoEngine</PackageId>
        <Version>1.0.0</Version>
        <Authors>hbolajraf hasan</Authors>
        <Company>hbolajraf.NET</Company>
        <Product>CryptoEngine</Product>
        <Description>Chipper text generator</Description>
        <RepositoryUrl>https://github.com/hbolajraf/public-packages</RepositoryUrl>
      </PropertyGroup>    
    </Project>

Step 4: Create a NuGet Package

• Click right button on project and select Pack
• A NuGet package will be generated in bin/Debug folder – In this case the nuget package name is hbolajraf.CryptoEngine.1.0.0.nupkg
• Or, Go to the directory where .csproj file exists and right the following command to generate nuget package

dotnet pack

Step 5: Push NuGet package to GitHub Package Registry

• Go to the directory where package generated – bin/Debug in this case.
• Type following command

dotnet nuget push .\hbolajraf.CryptoEngine.1.0.0.nupkg --api-key <your github access token> --source github-hbolajraf

Here github-hbolajraf is my nuget source name for visual studio. Already added in step 2.

• Now login to your Github account and go to Packages tab, you will see a package is uploaded. In this case package name is hbolajraf.CryptoEngine

Step 6: Use already uploaded package in a project

• If Nuget package source is not added, add it using step – 2
• Go to package manager console
• Select Package Source as “github-hbolajraf” and type following command

PM> Install-Package hbolajraf.CryptoEngine

• Or right button on project -> Manage Nuget Packages
• Select Package source “github-hbolajraf”
• Browse and install package hbolajraf.CryptoEngine