dotnet-ilc is a simple .NET tool wrapper over the ilc compiler provided by .NET 7.0 and higher, which is used for Native AOT (NAOT) compilation.
This tool is available under the NuGet package name ilc. In order to install it, use the following command:
dotnet tool install -g ilc
The tool will automatically retrieve the right versions based on the .NET runtime that is used to invoke the tool. This means that you might experience a measurable delay the first time you launch the tool with a new .NET version.
This tool is mainly intended for use when compiling with a custom set of runtime libraries and/or assemblies. If you wish to compile with .NET's runtime libraries, it's recommended to use a regular .NET project. Alternatively, you can reference the assemblies from the coressponding runtime.<rid>.microsoft.dotnet.ilcompiler packages, where <rid> is the runtime identifier of the target operating system.
If you're using C#, you can also check out bflat, which also uses ilc under the hood, but automatically compiles C# files to IL assemblies.
The internal NuGet packages used to store ilc - runtime.<rid>.microsoft.dotnet.ilcompiler - are meant to be used as project dependencies. These packages also supply various build specification files, which reference the stored ilc binary.
This wrapper removes the need for scripts to manually locate the NuGet global packages folder, or to use hacks such as creating a temporary project just to install the internal package. It automatically determines the host system runtime ID and .NET version, and retrieves the right package. In case of an non-major .NET version upgrade, the tool will automatically retrieve new files.