Chisel 1.0.0-rc.1

<img src="resources/icon.svg" alt="Chisel icon" width="100"/>

Chisel provides a way to remove unwanted dependencies from your dotnet projects.

Chisel was born because some database drivers can't resist taking dependencies on cloud libraries. The MongoDB driver depends on the ASW SDK for authentication with Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Microsoft's SQL Server driver depends on the Azure SDK for authentication with the Microsoft identity platform (formerly Azure AD).

Users have asked for separate NuGet packages for both MongoDB (issue #4635) and SqlClient (issue #1108) but as of MongoDB.Driver 2.24.0 and Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 5.2.0 the cloud dependencies are unavoidable, even if MongoDB or SQL Server is used on premises (where cloud authentication is obviously not needed).

Enter Chisel to remove those dependencies and save some precious megabytes.

Getting started

Add the Chisel NuGet package to your project using the NuGet Package Manager or run the following command:

⚠️ The NuGet package is not yet published.

dotnet add package Chisel

While Chisel's main purpose is removing unwanted dependencies from existing NuGet packages, it provides another great feature: a graph of your project's dependencies. After adding Chisel, a Mermaid (or Graphviz) graph is written in the intermediate output path (aka the obj directory).

For a project referencing Hangfire.PostgreSql and Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL the graph would look like this.

graph LR

classDef default fill:aquamarine,stroke:#009061

Hangfire.Core --> Newtonsoft.Json
Hangfire.PostgreSql --> Dapper
Hangfire.PostgreSql --> Hangfire.Core
Hangfire.PostgreSql --> Npgsql
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore --> Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Abstractions
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore --> Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore --> Microsoft.Extensions.Logging
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational --> Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational --> Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Abstractions --> Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives
Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory --> Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory --> Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory --> Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory --> Microsoft.Extensions.Options
Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory --> Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives
Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Abstractions --> Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives
Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection --> Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging --> Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging --> Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging --> Microsoft.Extensions.Options
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions --> Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Options --> Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions
Microsoft.Extensions.Options --> Microsoft.Extensions.Primitives
Npgsql --> Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions
Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL --> Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore
Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL --> Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Abstractions
Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL --> Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational
Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL --> Npgsql

Mermaid graphs can be used directly in markdown files on GitHub and are rendered as graphs, just like the one just above. Or they can also be edited, previewed and shared with the Mermaid live editor.

Graphviz (DOT) files can be written instead by setting the ChiselGraphName property to a name that ends with .gv:

<PropertyGroup>
  <ChiselGraphName>$(MSBuildProjectName).Chisel.gv</ChiselGraphName>
</PropertyGroup>

Graphviz files can be visualized and shared online with Edotor or locally with the excellent Graphviz Interactive Preview extension for Visual Studio Code.

Removing the AWS SDK from MongoDB.Driver

After adding the Chisel package to your project, tell it to remove the AWSSDK.SecurityToken dependency with the ChiselPackage property.

<PropertyGroup>
  <ChiselPackage>AWSSDK.SecurityToken</ChiselPackage>
</PropertyGroup>

Specifying the direct dependencies is enough. Looking at the produced graph confirms that Chisel figured out the transitive dependencies by itself (there's only AWSSDK.Core in this scenario).

graph LR

classDef default fill:aquamarine,stroke:#009061
classDef removed fill:lightcoral,stroke:#A42A2A

AWSSDK.SecurityToken/3.7.100.14 --> AWSSDK.Core/3.7.100.14
DnsClient/1.6.1 --> Microsoft.Win32.Registry/5.0.0
Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions/8.0.1 --> Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions/8.0.1
Microsoft.Win32.Registry/5.0.0 --> System.Security.AccessControl/5.0.0
Microsoft.Win32.Registry/5.0.0 --> System.Security.Principal.Windows/5.0.0
MongoDB.Bson/2.24.0 --> System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe/6.0.0
MongoDB.Driver/2.24.0 --> Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions/8.0.1
MongoDB.Driver/2.24.0 --> MongoDB.Bson/2.24.0
MongoDB.Driver/2.24.0 --> MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0
MongoDB.Driver/2.24.0 --> MongoDB.Libmongocrypt/1.8.2
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> AWSSDK.SecurityToken/3.7.100.14
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> DnsClient/1.6.1
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions/8.0.1
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> MongoDB.Bson/2.24.0
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> MongoDB.Libmongocrypt/1.8.2
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> SharpCompress/0.30.1
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> Snappier/1.0.0
MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 --> ZstdSharp.Port/0.7.3
System.Security.AccessControl/5.0.0 --> System.Security.Principal.Windows/5.0.0

class AWSSDK.Core/3.7.100.14 removed
class AWSSDK.SecurityToken/3.7.100.14 removed
class DnsClient/1.6.1 default
class Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Abstractions/8.0.1 default
class Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Abstractions/8.0.1 default
class Microsoft.Win32.Registry/5.0.0 default
class MongoDB.Bson/2.24.0 default
class MongoDB.Driver/2.24.0 default
class MongoDB.Driver.Core/2.24.0 default
class MongoDB.Libmongocrypt/1.8.2 default
class SharpCompress/0.30.1 default
class Snappier/1.0.0 default
class System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe/6.0.0 default
class System.Security.AccessControl/5.0.0 default
class System.Security.Principal.Windows/5.0.0 default
class ZstdSharp.Port/0.7.3 default

Now, both AWSSDK.Core.dll and AWSSDK.SecurityToken.dll have disappeared from the build output.

As long as the MONGODB-AWS authentication mechanism is not used everything will work fine. See the MongoDbSample project in the samples director

Removing the Azure SDK from Microsoft.Data.SqlClient

Coming soon. In the meantime, please look at the SqlClientSample project in the samples directory.

Advanced configuration

Here are all the MSBuild properties and items supported by Chisel.

ChiselEnabled

defaults to true

In order to completely disable Chisel, set the ChiselEnabled property to false. This can be useful for building on the command line with dotnet build -p:ChiselEnabled=false for example.

ChiselGraphName

defaults to $(MSBuildProjectName).Chisel.mermaid

This is the name of the dependency graph file. A Mermaid file will be written if it ends with either .mmd or .mermaid, otherwise a Graphviz (DOT) file will be written. To completely disable the graph feature, use none.

<PropertyGroup>
  <ChiselGraphName>none</ChiselGraphName>
</PropertyGroup>

Note that the file name must not include a path separator.

ChiselGraphAlias

no default value

Setting the ChiselGraphAlias property adds an alias (link) under the project. This is useful to see the graph directly into the IDE. A very good combination with the Rider Mermaid plugin.

<img src="resources/ChiselGraphAlias.png" alt="Screenshot of the SqlClientSample project with the Mermaid graph">

<PropertyGroup>
  <ChiselGraphAlias>Chisel\SqlClientSample.mermaid</ChiselGraphAlias>
</PropertyGroup>

ChiselGraphDirection

defaults to LeftToRight

This defines how the dependency graph is laid out. Possible values are LeftToRight and TopToBottom. Except for shallow graphs, left to right usually produce a more readable graph.

ChiselGraphIncludeVersions

defaults to false

Controls whether the dependency graph nodes are named {package} or {package}/{version}.

Example with ChiselGraphIncludeVersions set to false

graph LR
Serilog.Sinks.File --> Serilog

Example with ChiselGraphIncludeVersions set to true

graph LR
Serilog.Sinks.File/5.0.0 --> Serilog/2.10.0

ChiselGraphIgnore

On real projects, the dependency graph may become huge. Adding packages to ChiselGraphIgnore will remove them from the dependency graph, thus reducing the overall size and increasing readability in other areas.

<ItemGroup>
  <ChiselGraphIgnore Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration" />
  <ChiselGraphIgnore Include="Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection" />
  <ChiselGraphIgnore Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting" />
</ItemGroup>