How to distinguish if a package is used as transitive or direct dependency?

[thomasdgx]

Problem description

As package author how can I distinguish if my package is used as transitive or direct dependency?

A NuGet package gets used and shall behave differently if it’s used as a direct or a transitive dependency. E.g. some Property has to be extended if it is a direct dependency, but not if it is a transitive one. At the same time another Property has to be extended regardless if its direct or transitive.

I thought the build vs. buildTransitive folders (see MSDN) are what I need.

Here is a test scenario:
Assume I have a Project A which has a PackageReference to B, which depends on C. B and C are NuGet Packages.

Project A
└── Package B
    ├── build\B.props
    ├── buildTransitive\B.props
    └── Package C
        ├── build\C.props
        ├── buildTransitive\C.props

A has a direct dependency to B and a transitive dependency to C

Expected behaviour:

Project A should be able to consume build/B.props from Package B and buildTransitive/C.props from Package C

Observed behaviour:

In the given example buildTransitive/B.props and buildTansitive/C.props are available in Project A.
As soon as a package has a package.props in the buildTransitive folder, then the package.props from the build folder is ignored.

Interestingly when I remove the buildTransive package props files, then both build package props will be available. But I am not able to get the desired behaviour.

Question:

I thought the build vs. buildTransitive folders (see MSDN) are what I need.

Basically, I would also be fine if I could distinguish the dependency type (direct vs. transitive), then I could add conditions on the properties within the package props.

Note: Custom targets or so in Project A are not desired. It shall be transparently provided through the NuGet packages. The package consumers shall not be forced to add custom logic.

Context:

dotnet --info
.NET SDK:
 Version:           9.0.101
 Commit:            eedb237549
 Workload version:  9.0.100-manifests.4a280210
 MSBuild version:   17.12.12+1cce77968