Is there a way to "forward" content / contentFiles from one package to another?

[the-avid-engineer]

This package has content / contentFiles folders: https://nuget.info/packages/NewRelic.Agent/8.41.1

For simplicity's sake, let's say I have a super simple project file MyPackage.csproj

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework>
    <PackageId>MyPackage</PackageId>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="NewRelic.Agent" Version="8.41.1" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

I run dotnet pack MyPackage and then inspect the resulting MyPackage.nupkg - it does not have the content / contentFiles folders.

Is there a way to "forward" the content / contentFiles from NewRelic.Agent to MyPackage? It's okay if it's not an automatic thing.. I just want to know if there is any way to get those files over?

(Just in case I need to say it.. in reality MyPackage is doing a lot more than just referencing that other package and forwarding its contents. I've just dumbed it down to see if this is possible)

---

Alternatively, if MyProject.csproj has a PackageReference for MyPackage, is there a way to get the contentFiles from NewRelic.Agent to copy to the output folder of MyProject?

This seems to work just fine when MyPackage is a ProjectReference, but not when MyPackage is a PackageReference

[the-avid-engineer]

Turns out this is possible (at least with a .NET 6 target framework, I haven't tested anything earlier)

If you use the following in MyPackage.csproj:

    <PackageReference Include="NewRelic.Agent" Version="9.6.0">
      <PrivateAssets>analyzers;build</PrivateAssets>
    </PackageReference>

And this in MyProject.csproj:

    <PackageReference Include="...MyPackage..." Version="...MyPackageVersion...">
      <PrivateAssets>analyzers;build</PrivateAssets>
    </PackageReference>

Then the contentFiles from NewRelic.Agent will be copied to the output of MyProject!