MSBuild Anti-Pattern Catalog

A numbered catalog of common MSBuild anti-patterns. Each entry follows the format:

• Smell: What to look for
• Why it's bad: Impact on builds, maintainability, or correctness
• Fix: Concrete transformation

Use this catalog when scanning project files for improvements.

AP-01: <Exec> for Operations That Have Built-in Tasks

Smell: <Exec Command="mkdir ..." />, <Exec Command="copy ..." />, <Exec Command="del ..." />

Why it's bad: Built-in tasks are cross-platform, support incremental build, emit structured logging, and handle errors consistently. <Exec> is opaque to MSBuild.