Not working with .NET core .csproj files with Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\Sdk\Sdk.props not found error

I have made a sample repository for reproducing the problem available at https://github.com/dlech/docfx_project.

I am using DocFX v2.18.4 installed from the chocolatey package on Windows 10 with VS 2017 Preview (15.3 preview 2).

This is basically the default docfx init with a C# project added to the src/ directory (dotnet new classlib -o src/) using dotnet2.0 preview tooling.

When running docfx, I get the unhelpful warning (see #1686):

[17-06-09 03:41:02.022]Warning:No metadata is generated for Core.

Running more than once results in an extra warning:

[17-06-09 04:19:08.622]Warning:Cache for C:/Users/david/Documents/GitHub/Dandy.Core/Dandy.Core.sln in C:\Users\david\Documents\GitHub\Dandy.Core\obj\xdoc\cache\final\-262745601 is corrupted
[17-06-09 04:19:08.622]Warning:No metadata is generated for Core.

After cherry-picking #1738, I get the additional message:

[17-06-09 04:23:49.102]Warning:Workspace failed with: [Failure] Msbuild failed when processing the file 'C:\Users\david\Documents\GitHub\Dandy.Core\src\Core.csproj' with message: The imported project "C:\users\david\Documents\GitHub\docfx\src\docfx\bin\Debug\net46\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\Sdk\Sdk.props" was not found. Confirm that the path in the <Import> declaration is correct, and that the file exists on disk.  C:\Users\david\Documents\GitHub\Dandy.Core\src\Core.csproj

So, it appears that DocFX is now expecting to find the .NET SDK in a folder relative to the docfx.exe.

[sandersaares]

set VisualStudioVersion=15.0
set VSINSTALLDIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\

These two environment variables appear to resolve this issue - at least I get no more warnings in the output.

[vicancy]

Hi @dealdiane , according to Microsoft/msbuild#1697 . there is a gap between msbuild tool and .NET core SDK build, so you have to install Visual Studio 2017 (not Build Tools but the full VS) on your build server as current workaround…