Using EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain

EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain is the recommended companion tool for Endstone .NET plugins. It automates the two most annoying parts of plugin development:

1. Merging dependencies — on every build, all dependency DLLs of your plugin are merged into the main assembly via ILRepack, so you ship a single clean assembly;
2. Packaging — the merged assembly (plus any DLLs you chose to keep separate) is assembled into an endstone-plugin folder, ready to drop into the server's plugins directory.

A build then produces exactly one deployable folder — no manual copying of dependency DLLs.

Requirements

• .NET 8 runtime (for the tool itself) and the .NET SDK (to build plugins)
• Windows recommended (interactive console TUI); the merge logic itself is cross-platform

1. Get the tool

Clone or download the repository:

git clone https://github.com/ArkMirage/EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain

Build it:

cd EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain
dotnet publish -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained false

Put EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain.exe into your plugin project root directory (or any subdirectory) — the tool walks up to find your .csproj.

2. Configure once

Run the tool (double-click it, or invoke with configure):

EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain.exe

It will:

1. Find the directory containing your .csproj;
2. Auto-write <Import Project="EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain.targets" /> into the project file if it is missing;
3. Open the interactive TUI listing your plugin's dependency DLLs — tick the ones you want to keep separate (not merged; e.g. native binding assemblies that must load on their own), then press Q / Esc to save.

The selections are stored in endstone-toolchain.json next to your project:

{
  "excludedAssemblies": [
    "MyNativeBridge"
  ]
}

TUI keys: ↑/↓ move, Enter/Space toggle, A selects all, N clears, Q/Esc saves and exits. When stdin is redirected (CI), the TUI degrades to "keep existing config" mode.

3. Build normally

dotnet build

Nothing changes in your workflow — the AfterBuild hook runs ILRepack automatically. The output ends up at:

bin\<Configuration>\<TargetFramework>\endstone-plugin\

4. Deploy

Copy the whole endstone-plugin folder into the server's plugins directory and restart the server. One folder, one drop — done.

Command-line reference

Command	Description
EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain.exe	Open the TUI, pick assemblies to keep separate, save config
configure / -c / --configure	Same as above
merge --project <dir> --output <dir> [--assembly <file>]	Run the ILRepack merge (invoked by the build hook)
help / -h / --help	Show help

merge options:

Option	Required	Description
--project	Yes	Plugin project root (locates endstone-toolchain.json)
--output	Yes	Build output directory (TargetDir)
--assembly	No	Main assembly file name (default: <project dir name>.dll)

MSBuild properties (set in .targets):

Property	Description
EndstoneDotnetToolchainDisabled	Set to true to skip merging for this build
EndstoneDotnetToolchainExe	Override tool exe path (default: same directory as the targets file)

Troubleshooting

• Plugin fails to load with missing types — an assembly that must load in its own context was merged: re-run configure and mark it "keep separate".
• Merge is skipped entirely — check that EndstoneDotnetToolchainDisabled is not set and that the <Import Project="EndstoneDotnet.Toolchain.targets" /> line is present in your .csproj after a fresh clone.
• Corrupt config — the tool backs the file up as endstone-toolchain.json.corrupt.bak automatically; just run configure again.