Automating creating NuGet package as part of build process

One thing that might work well is to create a custom MSBuild .proj file. You could define a couple targets in the custom script, the first to execute the compile on your solution. A second target to execute following compilation would use the EXEC MSBuild task to invoke the nuget.exe command line utility. Then, you update your batch file-runner to execute the msbuild executable supplying your custom project file as an argument. You might already be using MSBuild in your batch script, which in that case it would simply be a matter of argument swapping. You could include your custom proj file in the solution items of your solution. If you did that you could easily add an external tool reference in Visual Studio to quickly test out your custom script to make sure it was building and producing the package like you hope.

Sample MSBuild

You can use this as a starting place:

<Project DefaultTargets="Compile" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" >
    <PropertyGroup>
      <SolutionFile></SolutionFile>
      <NugetExecutable>C:\PathToNuget\nuget.exe</NugetExecutable>
      <NuspecFile></NuspecFile>
    </PropertyGroup>

    <Target Name = "Compile">
        <MSBuild Projects="$(SolutionFile)" Properties="Configuration=Release" />
    </Target>

    <Target Name = "Package">
    <!-- You could use the MSBuild Copy task here to move the compiled code into
           a structure that fits your desired package format -->
      <Exec Command="&quot;$(NugetExecutable)&quot; pack $(NuspecFile)" />
    </Target>
</Project>

You’d then call this like:

"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe" Build.proj /p:SolutionFile=PathToSolution\App.sln;NuspecFile=foo.nuspec