Cake v6.1.0 released

Published

Sunday, 1 March 2026

Category

Release Notes

Author

devlead

Version 6.1.0 of Cake has been released. Take it for a spin and give us feedback on our discussion board.

This release includes new features, improvements, and bug fixes to both Cake Scripting, Cake Frosting, and Cake Sdk since the Cake v6.0.0 release! 🚀 🍰

Highlights of this release

• FormattableString support in logging — Use interpolated strings and FormattableLogAction with Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Debug for cleaner logging.
• Cake.Sdk In-Process NuGet client support - Install any NuGet package into tools
• .slnx support — DotNetTest and solution parsing now recognize .slnx (XML solution) files; PathType autodetection includes .slnx.
• NuGet Pack readme — NuGetPack supports the package readme file via the new ReadMe setting.
• AssemblyInfo creator — You can now add multiple instances of the same custom attribute (e.g. multiple InternalsVisibleTo).
• In-Process NuGet authentication — In-process NuGet restore supports authenticated feeds (e.g. GitHub Package Registry) via NuGet_ConfigFile and credential providers.
• GitLab CI — Build, and pipeline IDs are now long instead of int, so they work on gitlab.com where IDs exceed 32-bit range (breaking for code that stores them in int).
• Bug fixes — DotNetPublish uses non-boolean --self-contained arguments; DotNetSlnList respects DOTNET_CLI_UI_LANGUAGE; Frosting command-line configuration parsing corrected; console log colorization fixed.
• Dependency and SDK updates

FormattableString support in logging

You can now pass interpolated strings directly to the logging aliases, so formatting is clear, and the cost of building the message is only paid when the log level is active.

Using a FormattableString (interpolated string):

var project = "MyApp";
var version = "1.0.0";
Information($"Building {project} v{version}");

Using FormattableLogAction for lazy evaluation (the message is only formatted if the current verbosity allows it):

Verbose(log => log($"Processing {items.Count} items in {stopwatch.ElapsedMilliseconds} ms"));

All of Error, Warning, Information, Verbose, and Debug support both overloads.

Cake.Sdk In-Process NuGet client support

Cake.Sdk now goes beyond .NET tools: you can install and run any NuGet package with #tool / InstallTool, just like Cake.Tool already does. That makes it easy to pull in platform-specific packages (e.g. Bicep CLI) and invoke them with Command or the tool aliases.

Example: installing the Bicep CLI for the current OS and architecture, then running it:

Task("Install-Bicep")
    .Does(() =>
{
    var osArch = (Context.Environment.Platform.Family, RuntimeInformation.OSArchitecture);
    Information($"Installing bicep tool for {osArch}");

    FilePath[] bicepToolPaths;
    switch (osArch)
    {
        case (PlatformFamily.Windows, System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.X64):
            bicepToolPaths = InstallTool("nuget:?package=Azure.Bicep.CommandLine.win-x64&version=0.41.2&include=/**/bicep.exe");
            break;

        case (PlatformFamily.Windows, System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.Arm64):
            bicepToolPaths = InstallTool("nuget:?package=Azure.Bicep.CommandLine.win-arm64&version=0.41.2&include=/**/bicep.exe");
            break;

        case (PlatformFamily.Linux, System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.X64):
            bicepToolPaths = InstallTool("nuget:?package=Azure.Bicep.CommandLine.linux-x64&version=0.41.2&include=/**/bicep");
            break;

        case (PlatformFamily.Linux, System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.Arm64):
            bicepToolPaths = InstallTool("nuget:?package=Azure.Bicep.CommandLine.linux-arm64=0.41.2&include=/**/bicep");
            break;

        case (PlatformFamily.OSX, System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.X64):
            bicepToolPaths = InstallTool("nuget:?package=Azure.Bicep.CommandLine.osx-x64&version=0.41.2&include=/**/bicep");
            break;

        case (PlatformFamily.OSX, System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.Arm64):
            bicepToolPaths = InstallTool("nuget:?package=Azure.Bicep.CommandLine.osx-arm64&version=0.41.2&include=/**/bicep");
            break;

        default:
            Warning($"Platform {osArch.Family} with architecture {osArch.OSArchitecture} is not supported.");
            return;
    }

    var bicepTool = bicepToolPaths.FirstOrDefault() ?? throw new FileNotFoundException("Failed to resole tool");

    Information($"Installed bicep to {bicepTool}");
    Command(
        new CommandSettings
        {
            ToolExecutableNames = ["bicep", "bicep.exe"],
            ToolName = "bicep",
            ToolPath = bicepTool
        },
        "--version");
});

Contributors

This release was made possible thanks to the Cake team and the contribution of these awesome members of the Cake community listed below:

• devlead
• peymanr34
• SoulSniper1212
• wgnf
• augustoproiete
• paulomorgado
• TrymBeast
• gep13
• NatMarchand
• squid-box

Full details of everything that was included in this release can be seen below.

Issues

As part of this release we had 43 issues closed.

Breaking change

• #4656 Gitlab CI_PIPELINE_ID has exceeded the int limits on gitlab.com and the variable should be changed to a long.

Feature

• #4698 Add FormattableString Support to Logging Methods.
• #4520 add slnx support.
• #4071 Unable to set multiple of the same attribute CustomAttributes in AssemblyInfo creator.
• #3517 NuGet Pack Should support new readme file.
• #2028 In-Process NuGet doesn't support authentication.

Improvement

• #4740 Add CakeModule assemmbly attribute to NuGetModule.
• #4737 Update Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection to 9.0.13 & 10.0.3 (net9.0&net10.0).
• #4735 Update Microsoft.IdentityModel.JsonWebTokens to 8.16.0.
• #4733 Update NuGet.* to 7.3.0.
• #4715 Update System.Security.Cryptography.Pkcs to 9.0.12 & 10.0.2 (net9.0&net10.0).
• #4713 Update Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection to 9.0.12 & 10.0.2 (net9.0&net10.0).
• #4694 Update Autofac to 9.0.0.
• #4692 Update System.Security.Cryptography.Pkcs to 10.0.1 for net10.0.
• #4688 Update Microsoft.IdentityModel.JsonWebTokens to 8.15.0.
• #4685 Update Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection to 10.0.1 for net10.0.
• #4683 Update Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.Scripting to 5.0.0.
• #4679 Update Basic.Reference.Assemblies.* to 1.8.4.
• #4677 Update NuGet.* to 7.0.1.
• #4675 Update Spectre.Console & Spectre.Console.Cli to 0.54.0 & 0.53.1.
• #4658 Add support for MSBuild 18 and VS2026.
• #4635 DotCover no longer works with version 2025.2+ of JetBrains.dotCover.CommandLineTools.

Bug

• #4720 Use non-boolean self-contained arguments for dotnet publish.
• #4706 Add support for .slnx files in dotnet test PathType autodetection.
• #4687 Cake Frosting FrostingConfiguration Command Line parameters are not parsed correctly.
• #4667 DotNetSlnList hardcodes English output.
• #4662 Colorization of console log output.