MiniCover

Code Coverage Tool for .NET Core

Supported .NET Core SDKs

• 8.0 (Global tool or local tool)
• 9.0 (Global tool or local tool)
• 10.0 (Global tool or local tool)

Installation

MiniCover can be installed as a global tool:

dotnet tool install --global minicover

Or local tool:

dotnet tool install minicover

Commands

This is a simplified documentation of MiniCover commands and options.

Use --help for more information:

minicover --help

When installed as local tool, MiniCover commands must be prefixed with dotnet. Example:

dotnet minicover --help

Instrument

minicover instrument

Use this command to instrument assemblies to record code coverage.

It is based on the following main options:

option	description	type	default
sources	source files to track coverage	glob	src/**/*.cs
exclude-sources	exceptions to source option	glob	**/bin/**/*.cs and **/obj/**/*.cs
tests	test files used to recognize test methods	glob	tests/**/*.cs and test/**/*.cs
exclude-tests	exceptions to tests option	glob	**/bin/**/*.cs and **/obj/**/*.cs
assemblies	assemblies considered for instrumentation	glob	**/*.dll
exclude-assemblies	Exceptions to assemblies option	glob	**/obj/**/*.dll
fail-on-skipped-assemblies	Fail this command (non-zero exit code) if some assemblies could not be instrumented for an unexpected reason, e.g. their source files changed while instrumenting	flag	false

Note 1: Assemblies not related to sources or tests are automatically ignored.

Note 2: Supported syntax for glob values.

Note 3: You can repeat glob options to represent multiple values. Example: --sources "a/**/*.cs" --sources "b/**/*.cs"

This command also generates a coverage.json file with information about the instrumented code.

Uninstrument

minicover uninstrument

Use this command to revert the instrumentation based on coverage.json file.

Make sure you call uninstrument before publishing or packing your application.

Reset

minicover reset

Use this command to reset the recorded coverage so far.

Report

minicover report

Use this command to print a coverage report in the console.

The command exits with failure if the coverage doesn't meet a specific threshold (90% by default).

More commands

• cloverreport: Write an Clover-formatted XML report to file
• coberturareport: Write a cobertura XML report to file
• coverallsreport: Prepare and/or submit coveralls reports
• htmlreport: Write html report to folder
• opencoverreport: Write an OpenCover-formatted XML report to file
• xmlreport: Write an NCover-formatted XML report to file

Use --help for more information.

Build script example

dotnet restore
dotnet build

# Instrument
minicover instrument

# Reset hits
minicover reset

dotnet test --no-build

# Uninstrument
minicover uninstrument

# Create html reports inside folder coverage-html
minicover htmlreport --threshold 90

# Console report
minicover report --threshold 90

Ignore coverage files

Add the following to your .gitignore file to ignore code coverage results:

coverage-html
coverage-hits
coverage.json

Libraries

When using MiniCover libraries:

• use dependency injection to create instances
• use only the main interfaces listed on each package below

By doing that, you reduce the risk of being impacted by future MiniCover changes.

MiniCover.Core

Main MiniCover operations.

Dependency injection configuration:

services.AddMiniCoverCore();

Main interfaces:

• IInstrumenter
• IUninstrumenter
• IHitsReader
• IHitsResetter

MiniCover.Reports

MiniCover reports.

Dependency injection configuration:

services.AddMiniCoverCore();
services.AddMiniCoverReports();

Main interfaces:

• ICloverReport
• ICoberturaReport
• IConsoleReport
• ICoverallsReport
• IHtmlReport
• IHtmlSourceFileReport
• INCoverReport
• IOpenCoverReport

Releasing (Mews fork)

This fork publishes Mews.MiniCover* packages to the internal Azure Artifacts feed with mews-internal-release.ps1. Versions are derived by the script, never hand-written:

branch	version
mews	3.9.0-rel.202608131409
anything else	3.9.0-dev.MOD-348.202608131409

• 3.9.0 is the upstream version the fork is based on. It lives in src/Directory.Build.props and is the only place to change it when the fork is rebased onto a newer upstream.
• rel / dev says whether it is a release or a branch build. NuGet compares pre-release labels case-insensitively, one dot-separated identifier at a time — dev < rel and it comes first, so a branch build can never look newer than a release, whatever the ticket key is.
• The ticket key, taken from the branch name, says where a branch build came from.
• The timestamp is UTC yyyyMMddHHmm, so versions order within each line and nobody has to look up what was published last.

To publish:

./mews-internal-release.ps1

The script refuses to run on an uncommitted tree, records the published commit in the nuspec <repository commit="..."> field and in the assembly informational version, and tags that commit with the version it published. Use -DryRun to build the packages into ./artifacts without publishing or tagging.

Consumers must pin an exact version. A floating 3.9.0-* range resolves to unmerged branch builds.