NuGet Package ★Ultimate

Babel Obfuscator ships two NuGet packages. Both come with the Ultimate edition and with the Babel Licensing site editions (Server and Data Center), and neither is published on nuget.org: you receive them with the product and host them on a private feed or in a local folder, as described in Package Setup.

Why the Package Instead of the Babel Task

You can always add the Babel task to a project by hand. The package does that for you, and it also solves a problem that is hard to solve by hand in SDK-style projects: the .NET SDK runs several IL-level steps after compilation (dependency resolution, trimming, single-file bundling, ahead-of-time compilation), and obfuscation must happen before all of them. The package inserts the Babel task right after the compiler, on the assembly in the intermediate obj folder, so every later step of the build works on the obfuscated assembly. See Build Pipeline.

Beyond placement, the package:

• Ships the Babel build tools for every supported MSBuild host, that is .NET Framework MSBuild, Mono, and the .NET SDK from 6.0 to 10.0, and picks the right one automatically.
• Configures the Babel task from what the project already knows: assembly search directories from the project references, the strong-name key, debug symbols, the rules file and the license file.
• Skips design-time builds in Visual Studio and incremental builds where the compiler did not run, keeping the IDE responsive.
• Keeps dotnet publish consistent when assemblies are merged or embedded, by updating the .deps.json file and the set of published files.

Requirements

• A .NET SDK from 6.0 to 10.0, Visual Studio 2022 or later, or Mono MSBuild. .NET Framework projects built with MSBuild.exe are supported as well.
• A valid license: a babel.licenses file or a license key (see Activating the License). Without a license the package runs in evaluation mode and the obfuscated assemblies stop working after a short period.
• The package hosted on a NuGet feed your build can reach (see Install).

Quick Start

Add the package

Add the Babel.Obfuscator package to your feed, or to a local folder registered as a package source.

Reference the package

Reference the package from the project to obfuscate:

<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="Babel.Obfuscator" Version="12.0.0">
    <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
    <IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
  </PackageReference>
</ItemGroup>

Provide the license

Copy babel.licenses into the solution folder, or set the BabelLicense property.

Configure obfuscation

Add the obfuscation settings you want as MSBuild properties, for example:

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Release'">
  <StringEncryption>stream</StringEncryption>
  <ControlFlowObfuscation>if=on;switch=on;call=on</ControlFlowObfuscation>
  <ResourceEncryption>true</ResourceEncryption>
</PropertyGroup>

Build

Build. The Babel log appears in the build output and the output assembly is obfuscated.

In This Section

• Package Setup — hosting the package, adding the reference, activating the license and verifying the first build.
• Configuring Obfuscation — the MSBuild properties and items that drive every Babel feature, including the settings introduced in version 12.
• Build Pipeline — where obfuscation runs, how to move it, the targets you can extend, publishing, and how the build tools are selected.
• Babel Obfuscator Tool — the babel command line as a dotnet tool.
• Package Reference — every property, item and target defined by the package, and the mapping to the Babel task attributes.

Examples

The following examples in the manual use the Babel Obfuscator NuGet package.