In this blog post I will show you how to use Cake with your AppVeyor CI builds.

1. Create the build script

Add a build script called build.cake to the project root. In this tutorial, we'll just create a really simple build script for demonstration.

// Get the target.
var target = Argument<string>("target", "Default");

Task("Default")
  .Does(() =>
{
	Information("Hello from Cake!");
});

RunTarget(target);

2. Create a bootstrapper script

Create a old fashioned batch file called build.cmd that will download Cake and execute the build script.

@echo off

:Build
cls

if not exist tools\Cake\Cake.exe ( 
	echo Installing Cake...
	tools\NuGet.exe install Cake -OutputDirectory tools -ExcludeVersion -NonInteractive -Prerelease
)

echo Starting Cake...
tools\Cake\Cake.exe build.cake -target=Default -verbosity=diagnostic

3. Add NuGet.exe to your repository

Start by copying NuGet.exe to your tools folder. Cake uses the tools path as a convention for finding stuff it needs such as unit test runners and other tools.

• MyProject/
  • tools/
    • NuGet.exe
  • build.cake
  • build.cmd

4. Tell AppVeyor what to do

Now we need to tell AppVeyor how to start the Cake build. Do this by setting the build script for your AppVeyor project to build.cmd. Save your settings and you should be done.

5. Profit

The next triggered build will now execute the Cake build script as expected.

For more information about Cake, see http://cake.readthedocs.org.