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What is Central Package Management (CPM) in NuGet, and how does Directory.Packages.props centralize version control?

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Answer

Central Package Management lets you specify all package versions once in a repository-root Directory.Packages.props file, with individual project .csproj files referencing packages by name only (without a version), ensuring every project in a multi-project solution uses exactly the same version of any shared dependency, eliminating version drift across a large codebase.
<!-- Directory.Packages.props -->
<Project>
  <PropertyGroup><ManagePackageVersionsCentrally>true</ManagePackageVersionsCentrally></PropertyGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageVersion Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="13.0.3" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

<!-- Individual .csproj: no version needed -->
<PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" />
Real-world example A monorepo with 50 projects adopts Central Package Management so bumping a security-patched package version requires editing exactly one file instead of 50 separate .csproj files.

Common follow-ups: How do you override a centrally-managed version for one specific project?;How does CPM interact with transitive dependency pinning?

.NET CLI SDK & Project Structure (csproj);CI/CD Publishing & Deployment
All 15 Assemblies & NuGet questions