MSBuild

Microsoft Build Tools (also known as MSBuild and Microsoft Build Engine) is a build tool set for managed code as well as native C++ code and was part of .NET Framework. Visual Studio depends on MSBuild, but MSBuild does not depend on Visual Studio.Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management depends on MSBuild to perform team builds via the Team Foundation Server.

MSBuild is a build tool that helps automate the process of creating a software product, including compiling the source code, packaging, testing, deployment and creating documentations. With MSBuild, it is possible to build Visual Studio projects and solutions without the Visual Studio IDE installed. MSBuild is available at no cost. MSBuild was previously bundled with .NET Framework; starting with Visual Studio 2013, however, it is bundled with Visual Studio instead. MSBuild is a functional replacement for the nmake utility, the latter of which remains in use in projects that originated in older Visual Studio releases.

MSBuild acts on MSBuild project files which have a similar XML syntax to Apache Ant or NAnt. Even though the syntax is based upon well-defined XML schema, the fundamental structure and operation is comparable to the traditional Unix make utility: the user specifies what will be used (typically source code files) and what the result should be (typically an application), but the utility itself decides what to do and the order in which to do it.