NuGetAuthenticate@1 - NuGet authenticate v1 task

Configure NuGet tools to authenticate with Azure Artifacts and other NuGet repositories. Requires NuGet >= 4.8.5385, dotnet >= 6, or MSBuild >= 15.8.166.59604.

Syntax

# NuGet authenticate v1
# Configure NuGet tools to authenticate with Azure Artifacts and other NuGet repositories. Requires NuGet >= 4.8.5385, dotnet >= 6, or MSBuild >= 15.8.166.59604.
- task: NuGetAuthenticate@1
  inputs:
    #nuGetServiceConnections: # string. Service connection credentials for feeds outside this organization. 
    #forceReinstallCredentialProvider: false # boolean. Reinstall the credential provider even if already installed. Default: false.

Inputs

nuGetServiceConnections - Service connection credentials for feeds outside this organization
string.

Optional. The comma-separated list of NuGet service connection names for feeds outside this organization or collection. For feeds in this organization or collection, leave this blank; the build's credentials are used automatically.


forceReinstallCredentialProvider - Reinstall the credential provider even if already installed
boolean. Default value: false.

Optional. Reinstalls the credential provider to the user profile directory, even if it's already installed. If the credential provider is already installed in the user profile, the task determines if it is overwritten with the task-provided credential provider. This may upgrade (or potentially downgrade) the credential provider.


Task control options

All tasks have control options in addition to their task inputs. For more information, see Control options and common task properties.

Output variables

None.

Remarks

Important

This task is only compatible with NuGet >= 4.8.0.5385, dotnet >= 6, or MSBuild >= 15.8.166.59604.

What tools are compatible with this task?

This task configures tools that support NuGet cross platform plugins. The tools currently include nuget.exe, dotnet, and recent versions of MSBuild with built-in support for restoring NuGet packages.

Specifically, this task will configure:

  • nuget.exe (version 4.8.5385 or higher)
  • dotnet / .NET 6 SDK or higher (a previous version of this task, NuGetAuthenticateV0, requires .NET Core 2.1, which is no longer supported)
  • MSBuild (version 15.8.166.59604 or higher)

Upgrading to the latest stable version is recommended if you encounter any issues.

I get "A task was canceled" errors during a package restore. What should I do?

Known issues in NuGet and in the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider can cause this type of error, and updating to the latest nuget may help.

A known issue in some versions of nuget/dotnet can cause this error, especially during large restores on resource constrained machines. This issue is fixed in NuGet 5.2, and .NET Core SDK 2.1.80X and 2.2.40X. If you are using an older version, try upgrading your version of NuGet or dotnet. The .NET Core Tool Installer task can be used to install a newer version of the .NET Core SDK.

There are also known issues with the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider (installed by this task), including artifacts-credprovider/#77 and artifacts-credprovider/#108. If you experience these issues, ensure you have the latest credential provider by setting the input forceReinstallCredentialProvider to true in the NuGet Authenticate task. This setting will also ensure your credential provider is automatically updated as issues are resolved.

If neither of the above resolves the issue, enable Plugin Diagnostic Logging and report the issue to NuGet and the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider.

How is this task different than the NuGetCommand and DotNetCoreCLI tasks?

This task configures nuget.exe, dotnet, and MSBuild to authenticate with Azure Artifacts or other repositories that require authentication. After this task runs, you can then invoke the tools in a later step (either directly or via a script) to restore or push packages.

The NuGetCommand and DotNetCoreCLI tasks require using the task to restore or push packages, as authentication to Azure Artifacts is only configured within the lifetime of the task. This can prevent you from restoring or pushing packages within your own script. It may also prevent you from passing specific command line arguments to the tool.

The NuGetAuthenticate task is the recommended way to use authenticated feeds within a pipeline.

When in my pipeline should I run this task?

This task must run before you use a NuGet tool to restore or push packages to an authenticated package source such as Azure Artifacts. There are no other ordering requirements. For example, this task can safely run either before or after a NuGet or .NET Core tool installer task.

How do I configure a NuGet package source that uses ApiKey ("NuGet API keys"), such as nuget.org?

Some package sources such as nuget.org use API keys for authentication when pushing packages, rather than username/password credentials. Due to limitations in NuGet, this task cannot be used to set up a NuGet service connection that uses an API key.

Instead:

  1. Configure a secret variable containing the ApiKey
  2. Perform the package push using nuget push -ApiKey $(myNuGetApiKey) or dotnet nuget push --api-key $(myNuGetApiKey), assuming you named the variable myNuGetApiKey

My agent is behind a web proxy. Will NuGetAuthenticate set up nuget.exe, dotnet, and MSBuild to use my proxy?

No. While this task itself will work behind a web proxy your agent has been configured to use, it does not configure NuGet tools to use the proxy.

To do so, you can either:

  • Set the environment variable http_proxy and optionally no_proxy to your proxy settings. See NuGet CLI environment variables for details. These variables are commonly used variables which other non-NuGet tools (e.g. curl) may also use.

    Caution:
    The http_proxy and no_proxy variables are case-sensitive on Linux and Mac operating systems and must be lowercase. Attempting to use an Azure Pipelines variable to set the environment variable will not work, as it will be converted to uppercase. Instead, set the environment variables on the self-hosted agent's machine and restart the agent.

  • Add the proxy settings to the user-level nuget.config file, either manually or using nuget config -set as described in the nuget.config reference documentation.

    Caution:
    The proxy settings (such as http_proxy) must be added to the user-level config. They will be ignored if specified in a different nuget.config file.

How do I debug if I have issues with this task?

To get verbose logs from the pipeline, add a pipeline variable system.debug and set to true.

How does this task work?

This task installs the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider into the NuGet plugins directory if it is not already installed. It then sets environment variables such as VSS_NUGET_URI_PREFIXES and VSS_NUGET_ACCESSTOKEN to configure the credential provider. These variables remain set for the lifetime of the job. When restoring or pushing packages, a NuGet tool executes the credential provider, which uses the above variables to determine if it should return credentials back to the tool.

See the credential provider documentation for more details.

My Pipeline needs to access a feed in a different project

If the pipeline is running in a different project than the project hosting the feed, you must set up the other project to grant read/write access to the build service. See Package permissions in Azure Pipelines for more details.

Will this work for pipeline runs that are triggered from an external fork?

No. Pipeline runs that are triggered from an external fork don't have access to the proper secrets for internal feed authentication. Thus, it will appear like the authenticate task is successful, but subsequent tasks that require authentication (such as Nuget push) will fail with an error along the lines of: ##[error]The nuget command failed with exit code(1) and error(Response status code does not indicate success: 500 (Internal Server Error - VS800075: The project with id 'vstfs:///Classification/TeamProject/341ec244-e856-40ad-845c-af31c33c2152' does not exist, or you do not have permission to access it. (DevOps Activity ID: C12C19DC-642C-469A-8F58-C89F2D81FEA7)). After the Pull Request is merged into the origin, then a pipeline that is triggered from that event will authenticate properly.

I updated from NuGetAuthenticateV0 to NuGetAuthenticateV1 and now my dotnet command fails with 401

If you are updating from NuGetAuthenticateV0 to NuGetAuthenticateV1 and get an error running a dotnet command, look for the message It was not possible to find any compatible framework version from the logs. For dotnet users, NuGetAuthenticateV1 requires .NET 6 instead of .NET Core 2.1, which is required in NuGetAuthenticateV0 and is no longer supported. To resolve the issue, use the UseDotNet@2 task before the dotnet command to install .NET 6.

- task: UseDotNet@2
  displayName: Use .NET 6 SDK
  inputs:
    packageType: sdk
    version: 6.x

Examples

Restore and push NuGet packages within your organization

If all of the Azure Artifacts feeds you use are in the same organization as your pipeline, you can use the NuGetAuthenticate task without specifying any inputs. For project scoped feeds that are in a different project than where the pipeline is running in, you must manually give the project and the feed access to the pipeline's project's build service.

nuget.config

<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <!-- 
      Any Azure Artifacts feeds within your organization will automatically be authenticated. Both dev.azure.com and visualstudio.com domains are supported.
      Project scoped feed URL includes the project, organization scoped feed URL does not.
    -->
    <add key="MyProjectFeed1" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{organization}/{project}/_packaging/{feed}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <add key="MyProjectFeed2" value="https://{organization}.pkgs.visualstudio.com/{project}/_packaging/{feed}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <add key="MyOtherProjectFeed1" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{organization}/{project}/_packaging/{feed@view}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <add key="MyOrganizationFeed1" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{organization}/_packaging/{feed}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
  </packageSources>
</configuration>

To use a service connection, specify the service connection in the nuGetServiceConnections input for the NuGet Authenticate task. You can then reference the service connection with -ApiKey AzureArtifacts in a task.

nuget.exe

- task: NuGetAuthenticate@1
  inputs:
    nuGetServiceConnections: OtherOrganizationFeedConnection, ThirdPartyRepositoryConnection
- task: NuGetToolInstaller@1 # Optional if nuget.exe >= 4.8.5385 is already on the path
  inputs:
    versionSpec: '*'
    checkLatest: true
- script: nuget restore
# ...
- script: nuget push -ApiKey AzureArtifacts -Source "MyProjectFeed1" MyProject.*.nupkg

dotnet

- task: NuGetAuthenticate@1
  inputs:
    nuGetServiceConnections: OtherOrganizationFeedConnection, ThirdPartyRepositoryConnection
- task: UseDotNet@2 # Optional if the .NET Core SDK is already installed
- script: dotnet restore
# ...
- script: dotnet nuget push --api-key AzureArtifacts --source https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{organization}/_packaging/{feed1}/nuget/v3/index.json MyProject.*.nupkg

In the above examples, OtherOrganizationFeedConnection and ThirdPartyRepositoryConnection are the names of NuGet service connections that have been configured and authorized for use in your pipeline, and have URLs that match those in your nuget.config or command line argument.

The package source URL pointing to an Azure Artifacts feed may or may not contain the project. An URL for a project scoped feed must contain the project, and a URL for an organization scoped feed must not contain the project. Learn more about project scoped feeds.

Restore and push NuGet packages outside your organization

If you use Azure Artifacts feeds from a different organization or use a third-party authenticated package repository, you'll need to set up NuGet service connections and specify them in the nuGetServiceConnections input. Feeds within your Azure Artifacts organization will also be automatically authenticated.

nuget.config

<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <!-- Any Azure Artifacts feeds within your organization will automatically be authenticated -->
    <add key="MyProjectFeed1" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{organization}/{project}/_packaging/{feed}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <add key="MyOrganizationFeed" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{organization}/_packaging/{feed}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <!-- Any package source listed here whose URL matches the URL of a service connection in nuGetServiceConnections will also be authenticated.
         The key name here does not need to match the name of the service connection. -->
    <add key="OtherOrganizationFeed" value="https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/{otherorganization}/_packaging/{feed}/nuget/v3/index.json" />
    <add key="ThirdPartyRepository" value="https://{thirdPartyRepository}/index.json" />
  </packageSources>
</configuration>

nuget.exe

- task: NuGetAuthenticate@1
  inputs:
    nuGetServiceConnections: OtherOrganizationFeedConnection, ThirdPartyRepositoryConnection
- task: NuGetToolInstaller@1 # Optional if nuget.exe >= 4.8.5385 is already on the path
  inputs:
    versionSpec: '*'
    checkLatest: true
- script: nuget restore
# ...
- script: nuget push -ApiKey AzureArtifacts -Source "MyProjectFeed1" MyProject.*.nupkg

dotnet

- task: NuGetAuthenticate@1
  inputs:
    nuGetServiceConnections: OtherOrganizationFeedConnection, ThirdPartyRepositoryConnection
- task: UseDotNet@2 # Optional if the .NET Core SDK is already installed
- script: dotnet restore
# ...
- script: dotnet nuget push --api-key AzureArtifacts --source "MyProjectFeed1"  MyProject.*.nupkg

OtherOrganizationFeedConnection and ThirdPartyRepositoryConnection are the names of NuGet service connections that have been configured and authorized for use in your pipeline, and have URLs that match those in your nuget.config or command line argument.

The package source URL pointing to an Azure Artifacts feed may or may not contain the project. An URL for a project scoped feed must contain the project, and a URL for an organization scoped feed must not contain the project. Learn more about project scoped feeds.

Requirements

Requirement Description
Pipeline types YAML, Classic build, Classic release
Runs on Agent, DeploymentGroup
Demands None
Capabilities This task does not satisfy any demands for subsequent tasks in the job.
Command restrictions Any
Settable variables Any
Agent version 2.144.0 or greater
Task category Package
Requirement Description
Pipeline types YAML, Classic build, Classic release
Runs on Agent, DeploymentGroup
Demands None
Capabilities This task does not satisfy any demands for subsequent tasks in the job.
Command restrictions Any
Settable variables Any
Agent version 2.120.0 or greater
Task category Package