MetalamaConceptual documentationConfiguring and troubleshootingMSBuild properties and items

MSBuild properties and environment variables

Environment variables

Property	Type	Description
`METALAMA_TEMP`	String	The root path of Metalama temporary directory. The default value is the result of `Path.GetTempPath()`.

MSBuild properties

Note that all environment variables are imported as MSBuild properties by default.

Property	Type	Description
`MetalamaCompilerTransformerOrder`	Semicolon-separated list	Specifies the execution order of transformers in the current project. Transformers are identified by their namespace-qualified type name but without the assembly name. This property is generally unimportant because the only transformer is typically Metalama.Framework.
`MetalamaDebugTransformedCode`	Boolean	Indicates that you want to debug the transformed code instead of the source code. The default value is `False`.
`MetalamaEmitCompilerTransformedFiles`	Boolean	Indicates that `Metalama.Compiler` should write the transformed code files to disk. The default is `True` if `MetalamaDebugTransformedCode` is enabled and `False` otherwise.
`MetalamaCompilerTransformedFilesOutputPath`	Path	Specifies the directory path where the transformed code files are written. The default is `obj/$(Configuration)/metalama`.
`MetalamaDebugCompiler`	Boolean	Specifies that you want to attach a debugger to the compiler process. The default value is `False`.
`MetalamaLicense`	String	Represents a Metalama license key or license server URL. Any license key or license server URL provided this way takes precedence over the license registered via the `metalama` global tool.
`MetalamaEnabled`	Boolean	When set to `False`, specifies that Metalama.Framework should not execute in this project, although the Metalama.Framework package is referenced in the project. It does not affect the Metalama.Compiler package.
`MetalamaFormatOutput`	Boolean	Indicates that the transformed code should be nicely formatted. The default value is `True` if `MetalamaDebugTransformedCode` is `True` and `False` otherwise. Formatting the transformed code has a performance overhead and should only be performed when the code is troubleshot or exported.
`MetalamaFormatCompileTimeCode`	Boolean	Indicates that the compile-time code should be nicely formatted. The default value is `False`. Formatting the compile-time code has a performance overhead and should only be performed when the code is troubleshot or exported.
`MetalamaCompileTimeProject`	Boolean	Indicates that the complete project is compile-time code. This property is set to `True` by the Metalama.Framework.Sdk package. Otherwise, the default value is `False`.
`MetalamaDesignTimeEnabled`	Boolean	Indicates that the real-time design-time experience is enabled. The default value is `True`, and it can be set to `False` to work around performance issues. When this property is set to `False`, refreshing the IntelliSense cache requires you to rebuild the project.
`MetalamaRemoveCompileTimeOnlyCode`	Boolean	Indicates that Metalama should replace compile-time-only code with `throw new NotSupportedException()` in produced assemblies. The default value is `True` because Metalama normally executes compile-time-only code from the compile-time sub-project embedded as a managed resource in the assembly. This property should be set to `False` in public assemblies referenced by a weaver-style project (using Metalama SDK) because Metalama SDK needs to execute compile-time-only code from the main assembly.
`MetalamaCompileTimeTargetFrameworks`	Semicolon-separated list	Specifies the list of target frameworks for which compile-time projects should be built. The default value is `netstandard2.0;net6.0;net48`. Override this property if you cannot install the required .NET targetting packs on the machine. `netstandard2.0` is required.
`MetalamaRestoreSources`	Semicolon-separated list	Specifies the list of NuGet feeds used when restoring the compile-time project. The default value is `https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json`.
`MetalamaCreateLamaDebugConfiguration`	Boolean	Indicates that the `LamaDebug` build configuration should be automatically defined (see below). The default value is `True`.
`MetalamaTemplateLanguageVersion`	String	Specifies the C# language version (e.g. `10.0`) that's used by templates. Any syntax from higher C# versions is not allowed in template bodies. Such templates can then be used in projects that use this C# version.
`MetalamaConcurrentBuildEnabled`	Boolean	Specifies that Metalama can parallelize the work on several cores. The default value is `True`.
`MetalamaRoslynIsCompileTimeOnly`	Boolean	Indicates that types from the `Microsoft.CodeAnalysis` namespaces are considered compile-time-only. The default value is `True`. Set it to `False` if your project uses Roslyn in run-time code.

MSBuild items

Item	Description
`MetalamaTransformedCodeAnalyzer`	Represents a list of analyzers that must execute on the transformed code instead of the source code. Items can be set to a namespace or a full type name.
`MetalamaCompileTimePackage`	Represents a list of packages accessible from the compile-time code. These packages must explicitly target .NET Standard 2.0 and be included in the project as a `ProjectReference`. By default, only the .NET Standard 2.0 API and the Metalama API are available to compile-time code.

MSBuild build configurations

When you import the Metalama.Framework, a new build configuration named LamaDebug is defined unless you explicitly set the MetalamaCreateLamaDebugConfiguration property to False.

The LamaDebug configuration assigns the following properties:

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='LamaDebug'">
    <MetalamaDebugTransformedCode>True</MetalamaDebugTransformedCode>
</PropertyGroup>