msbuild /t:metrics fails on azuredevops pipeline

Question

While running below command for the solution it works fine on command line on on-premise.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild.exe" test.sln /t:Metrics -p:Configuration=Debug -p:Platform="Any CPU"

The task used in the pipeline is :

- task: CmdLine@2
            inputs:
              script: '"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\msbuild.exe" Test.sln /p:AzureDevOps=true /verbosity:d /t:Metrics -p:Configuration=Debug -p:Platform="Any CPU"'
              workingDirectory: 'C:\a\1\s\Ett\Test'
              failOnStderr: true

Also tried the task :

- task: VSBuild@1
            displayName: CodeMetrics    
            inputs:
             solution: '**\CN.Test.sln'
             msbuildArgs: '/t:Metrics'      
             platform: 'Any CPU'
             configuration: 'debug'
             createLogFile: true
             logFileVerbosity: 'detailed'

However fails to run from the pipeline with below error :

The target "Metrics" does not exist in the project

Answer 1

The target 'Metrics' the nuget 'Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.Metrics' is installed in each project.

This is the key. That target won't be available until after you've restored the nuget packages. The packages will have been restored on your local machine though.

For your build pipeline to work make sure you perform a restore first, either as part of the existing invocation of MSBuild, or as a seperate step.

MSBuild /t:restore;metrics ...

Or:

Msbuild /t:restore ...
Msbuild /t:metrics ...