How to debug cake project in vscode?

Question

Please provide cake project debugging steps with VS Code in Visual Studio 2015 not installed machine. I could not find any debugging steps in cake documentation.

Answer 1

1. Install Cake.CoreCLR NuGet package to your tools folder
2. Install Cake Extension for Visual Studio Code
3. Set up .NET Core debugger in Visual Studio Code. See http://aka.ms/vscclrdebugger for details
4. Open the directory containing your Cake files in Visual Studio Code

5. Create file .vscode/launch.json and add the following content (assuming your Cake file is build.cake)

   {
       "version": "0.2.0",
       "configurations": [
           {
               "name": ".NET Core Launch (console)",
               "type": "coreclr",
               "request": "launch",
               "program": "${workspaceRoot}/tools/Cake.CoreCLR/Cake.dll",
               "args": [
                   "${workspaceRoot}/build.cake",
                   "--debug",
                   "--verbosity=diagnostic"
               ],
               "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
               "stopAtEntry": true,
               "externalConsole": false
           }
       ]
   }
   

6. Open your Cake file and add a breakpoint by hitting F9

7. Hit F5 to start debugging

This is taken from an excellent in-depth blog post by Martin Björkström on Cake's website http://cakebuild.net/blog/2016/09/debug-cake-vscode

Note VSCode debugging will only work using .NET Core, so any addin / reference must be available for .NET Core.

For debugging standard standard .NET Cake use Visual Studio, which is described in this blog post by Gary Ewan Park http://cakebuild.net/blog/2016/05/debug-cake-file