Property Patterns

What it does

When your agent uses it

• : diagnosing and fixing MSBuild property definition issues in .props
• Reviewing and fixing shared property configuration anti-patterns
• Fixing DefineConstants
• NoWarn being overwritten instead of appended

Example prompts

• “/property-patterns”

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 44b9dcc. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are xml).

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Property Patterns loads about 1.7k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 248 tokens; SKILL.md has 277 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~248

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.7k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from microsoft/testfx at commit 44b9dcc, republished under its MIT licence (© microsoft). 277 words, ~1,724 tokens.

name

property-patterns

description

MSBuild property definition patterns: conditional defaults, composition/concatenation, path normalization, trailing slash handling, TFM detection helpers, and property evaluation order. USE FOR: diagnosing and fixing MSBuild property definition issues in .props or .csproj files, reviewing and fixing shared property configuration anti-patterns, fixing DefineConstants or NoWarn being overwritten instead of appended, fixing unconditional property assignments that prevent project-level overrides, fixing unquoted conditions that fail when properties are empty, fixing hardcoded paths that break cross-platform builds, setting property defaults that can be overridden, understanding property evaluation order and last-write-wins semantics. DO NOT USE FOR: props vs targets placement (use directory-build-organization), item operations (use item-management), target structure (use target-authoring), general anti-patterns (use msbuild-antipatterns), non-MSBuild build systems.

license

MIT

<PropertyGroup>
  <Configuration Condition="'$(Configuration)' == ''">Debug</Configuration>
  <Platform Condition="'$(Platform)' == ''">AnyCPU</Platform>
  <BuildInParallel Condition="'$(BuildInParallel)' == ''">true</BuildInParallel>
</PropertyGroup>

<PropertyGroup Condition="$(TargetFramework.StartsWith('net4'))">
  <DefineConstants>$(DefineConstants);FEATURE_APARTMENT_STATE</DefineConstants>
  <DefineConstants>$(DefineConstants);FEATURE_APM</DefineConstants>
  <FeatureAppDomain>true</FeatureAppDomain>
</PropertyGroup>

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$([MSBuild]::GetTargetFrameworkIdentifier('$(TargetFramework)'))' == '.NETCoreApp'">
  <NetCoreBuild>true</NetCoreBuild>
  <DefineConstants>$(DefineConstants);RUNTIME_TYPE_NETCORE</DefineConstants>
</PropertyGroup>

<PropertyGroup>
  <DefineConstants>$(DefineConstants);MY_FEATURE</DefineConstants>
  <NoWarn>$(NoWarn);NU5131;IDE0005</NoWarn>
  <LibraryTargetFrameworks>$(FullFrameworkTFM);$(LatestDotNetCoreForMSBuild);netstandard2.0</LibraryTargetFrameworks>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- Ensure trailing slash on directories -->
<PropertyGroup>
  <OutDir Condition="'$(OutDir)' != '' and !HasTrailingSlash('$(OutDir)')">$(OutDir)\</OutDir>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- Normalize paths for cross-platform -->
<PropertyGroup>
  <TargetRefPath>$([MSBuild]::NormalizePath('$(TargetDir)', 'ref', '$(TargetFileName)'))</TargetRefPath>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- Make relative path absolute -->
<PropertyGroup>
  <MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath
      Condition="'$([System.IO.Path]::IsPathRooted('$(MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath)'))' == 'false'">
    $([System.IO.Path]::Combine('$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)', '$(MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath)'))
  </MSBuildProjectExtensionsPath>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- Get TFM identifier -->
<PropertyGroup Condition="'$([MSBuild]::GetTargetFrameworkIdentifier('$(TargetFramework)'))' == '.NETCoreApp'">
  <NetCoreBuild>true</NetCoreBuild>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- Check TFM compatibility -->
<PropertyGroup Condition="$([MSBuild]::IsTargetFrameworkCompatible('$(TargetFramework)', 'net472'))">
  <UseFrozenVersions>true</UseFrozenVersions>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- OS detection -->
<PropertyGroup Condition="$([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('windows'))">
  <DefineConstants>$(DefineConstants);TEST_ISWINDOWS</DefineConstants>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- At the end of MySDK.props -->
<PropertyGroup>
  <MySDKPropsImported>true</MySDKPropsImported>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- At the top of MySDK.targets -->
<Import Project="MySDK.props" Condition="'$(MySDKPropsImported)' != 'true'" />

<PropertyGroup Condition="$([MSBuild]::AreFeaturesEnabled('17.10'))">
  <UseNewBehavior>true</UseNewBehavior>
</PropertyGroup>

<PropertyGroup>
  <TlbExpPath>$([Microsoft.Build.Utilities.ToolLocationHelper]::GetPathToDotNetFrameworkSdkFile('tlbexp.exe'))</TlbExpPath>
  <TlbExpPath Condition="'$(TlbExpPath)' == ''">$(_NetFxToolsDir)TlbExp.exe</TlbExpPath>
</PropertyGroup>

<!-- File 1 (imported first) -->
<MyProp>value1</MyProp>        <!-- set to value1 -->
<!-- File 2 (imported second) -->
<MyProp>value2</MyProp>        <!-- overwritten to value2 -->
<!-- File 3 (imported third) -->
<MyProp Condition="'$(MyProp)' == ''">value3</MyProp>  <!-- NOT set — already value2 -->

© microsoft, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in .agents/skills/property-patterns of microsoft/testfx.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 44b9dcc

Used in 2 other repositories

We found 3 copies of this SKILL.md (exact, near-identical or edited) in other folders, from 2 other GitHub owners. This page covers the copy in microsoft/testfx, which our catalogue first saw on October 7, 2026.

• dotnet/skillsplugins/dotnet-msbuild/skills/property-patterns
• managedcode/dotnet-skillscatalog/Tools/Official-DotNet-MSBuild/skills/property-patternsexternal-sources/upstreams/dotnet-skills/plugins/dotnet-msbuild/skills/property-patterns