.NUPKG

Introduction

A .nupkg file is a package for NuGet, the package manager for .NET. It holds a library’s compiled assemblies, often built for several versions of .NET, with a manifest naming the package, its version and the packages it depends on. Projects list the packages they use, and the .NET tools download them from nuget.org or another feed when the project is restored. Packages of debugging symbols use the same format with the extension .snupkg.

Structure

A NuGet package is a ZIP archive laid out as an Open Packaging Conventions package. At its root is the .nuspec manifest, an XML file with the package’s ID, version, authors, description, licence and dependencies. Assemblies go in lib/, in a folder per target framework such as lib/net8.0/ or lib/netstandard2.0/. Other folders hold build files, content and native runtimes. A signed package adds a .signature.p7s file.

Newtonsoft.Json.13.0.3.nupkg
├── Newtonsoft.Json.nuspec
├── lib/
│   ├── net45/Newtonsoft.Json.dll
│   └── netstandard2.0/Newtonsoft.Json.dll
├── [Content_Types].xml
├── _rels/.rels
├── package/services/metadata/core-properties/….psmdcp
└── .signature.p7s

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