Get Visual Studio to run a T4 Template on every build

Question

How do I get a T4 template to generate its output on every build? As it is now, it only regenerates it when I make a change to the template.

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Answer 1

Here's a pre-build event using only Microsoft Tooling and standard paths. It's tested in vs2019/netcore3.1.

Replace "AppDbContext.tt" with your project-relative file path:

"$(MSBuildBinPath)\msbuild" $(SolutionPath) /t:$(ProjectName):Transform /p:TransformFile="AppDbContext.tt" /p:CustomAfterMicrosoftCommonTargets="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\TextTemplating\Microsoft.TextTemplating.targets"

Microsoft also has a guide to make macros like "$(SolutionDirectory)" available in the template by using T4ParameterValues in your project file.