MSBuild Property Patterns

Canonical property definition and manipulation patterns from the MSBuild repository.

Conditional Defaults — The Foundational Pattern

Set a property only if not already set, allowing callers to override:

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

Rules