Core6, EFCore, and scaffolding - .net-core

Question

I have just created a brand new project in Visual Studio 2022. The project is targeting .NET 6.0, EF Core 6.0.7, and I have added the tools package so I can attempt to scaffold my existing database.
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
<TargetFramework>net6.0-windows</TargetFramework>
<Nullable>enable</Nullable>
<UseWindowsForms>True</UseWindowsForms>
<ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
<UseWPF>False</UseWPF>
</PropertyGroup>
<ItemGroup>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design" Version="6.0.7">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer" Version="6.0.7" />
<PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools" Version="6.0.7">
<PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
<IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
</PackageReference>
<!--<DotNetCliToolReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools" Version="6.0.7" />-->
</ItemGroup>
</Project>
You will notice that one line is commented out (...DotNetCliToolReference...), more on that in a minute.
When I try my scaffolding command, I am told that the command is not available, either via the PowerShell command or by the standard dotnet ef dbcontext scaffold ... command.
Could not execute because the specified command or file was not found.
Possible reasons for this include:
You misspelled a built-in dotnet command.
You intended to execute a .NET program, but dotnet-ef does not exist.
You intended to run a global tool, but a dotnet-prefixed executable with this name could not be found on the PATH.
THe command I am running is:
dotnet ef dbcontext scaffold "Data Source=MyServer;Initial Catalog=MyDatabase" Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer
With some research I discovered and added the DotNetCliToolReference line to add to my project file. After I add that I am immediately greeted with a new error.
NU1202 Package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools 6.0.7 is not compatible with netcoreapp2.2 (.NETCoreApp,Version=v2.2). Package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools 6.0.7 supports: net6.0 (.NETCoreApp,Version=v6.0)
As you can see from my project file, I am not running .NET Core v2.2!!!
Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

Answer 1

.NET tools aren't installed using DotNetCliToolReference. That's only used up to .NET Core 2.2. The EF docs don't mention it at all.
.NET Tools are managed with the dotnet tool command. You can see all the available commands and options with dotnet tool --help.
Tools are published as NuGet packages in NuGet.org. They can be installed with
dotnet tool install --global tool-name
The EF tool docs show that the correct command is
dotnet tool install --global dotnet-ef
Upgrading works the same as other dotnet tools
dotnet tool update --global dotnet-ef
Scaffolding in general is explained in the Reverse Engineering (Scaffolding) page