EmbedLibrary

Embed your .NET dependencies directly into your executable.

🗄️Archived: This repository is no longer maintained. Development has moved to Embedix, the successor project.

🌐 Compatibility & Target Frameworks

EmbedLibrary modifies .NET assemblies at the ECMA-335 metadata level using dnlib, allowing managed dependencies to be embedded into the target assembly.

Target Frameworks

• .NET Framework
• .NET Core
• Modern .NET

Supported Dependency Types

• Managed Assemblies (.dll): Compiled .NET assemblies, regardless of the source language, subject to runtime and dependency compatibility.
• Target Architectures: Any CPU, x86, x64, and ARM64.

⚠️ Important Notes & Limitations:

• Managed Assemblies Only: EmbedLibrary is designed for managed .NET assemblies. Native C/C++ DLLs cannot be loaded through the same managed assembly-resolution mechanism. Applications that depend on native libraries may require separate handling.
• No Native AOT: EmbedLibrary is not compatible with Native AOT deployments because its assembly-resolution approach relies on dynamic loading of managed assemblies.
• Runtime Compatibility: .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.5 are not supported.

🚀 Features

• ✅ Embeds managed dependencies into the target executable
• ✅ Post-build processing without requiring changes to the build process
• ✅ Compresses assemblies before embedding
• ✅ In-memory loading of embedded assemblies without extracting them to disk
• ✅ Flexible library selection: manual selection or automatic detection

🔎 Comparison

Tool	Build-time	Post-build	Loads Embedded DLLs from Memory	Compression	Adds Dependencies to Target	Flexibility
EmbedLibrary	❌	✅	✅	✅	❌	Manual + Auto
Costura.Fody	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅	Manual + Auto
ILMerge	❌	✅	N/A	❌	❌	Manual only

📌 Credits

• dnlib — Reads and writes .NET PE assemblies and modules.