How to debug a project file in MSBuild 14.0 / VS2015?

Question

How to debug a project file in MSBuild 12.0 / VS2013? has an answer, but apparently that method is not supported in Visual Studio 2015/MSBuild 14. Does anyone know a way to

Answer 1

It really works well in old VS version:

But if I use the VS2015, I got the same issue as yours, it could recognize the /debug command line.

I report this issue to the product team here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedbackdetail/view/3120913/how-to-debug-a-project-file-in-msbuild-14-0-vs2015

You could check the latest update from it, of course, please also vote and add your comment there:)

Answer 2

The MSBuild debugger was never officially supported and was cut from MSBuild in favor of cross-platform support in the VS 2015/MSBuild 14 timeframe.

There are many ways to debug the behavior of a build. The combination of a Verbosity=Diagnostic build log and the preprocessed project (msbuild /pp:preprocessed.xml path\to\the.csproj creates a file containing all of the build logic for a given project) is extremely powerful. You may also be interested in the UI that the MSBuildStructuredLog provides, which helps pare down the massive output produced by a diagnostic log.