NuGet lock files

31st May 2025

Step-by-step notes for enabling NuGet lock files in .NET projects so dependency resolution is repeatable across machines, CI pipelines, and pull requests.

This is mainly for my benefit (and to be honest, a fair bit of what I post here is just as much for me as it is for anyone else!)

To enable NuGet lock files, add a Directory.Build.props file (with that exact case) to your project. Usually in the root directory of your code repo, or in the specific project directories if you don’t want all .NET projects to inherit this.

Add this content to the file (or just copy the RestorePackagesWithLockFile property into an existing PropertyGroup if the file already exists)

<Project>
   <PropertyGroup>
      <RestorePackagesWithLockFile>true</RestorePackagesWithLockFile>
   </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

References:

• Enabling the lock file
• Directory.Build.props

Also worth mentioning as an update to my post back in 2021 about Dependabot and NuGet lockfiles that Dependabot finally supports updating NuGet lockfiles (as of September last year)