Hi David,

The models builder plugin was originally shipped with Umbraco, as of 8.5 it now ships its own version which does not have all the features of the plugin.

You have a couple of options:

1. Use the plugin - It has a community team supporting it - https://twitter.com/UModelsBuilder

2. If you don't want to use the plugin (I do it this way) I would suggest doing the flowing:

Use Umbraco.ModelsBuilder.ModelsMode="LiveAppData" when you want to generate models when you are running on an environment that shouldn't set this to Nothing

This setting creates *doctypealias*.generated.cs files in your App_Data folder and be compiled at runtime, which means no intellisense and some startup time.

To fix those issues create a .netstandard class library for holding your Models and/or c# code. Make sure to edit the csproj file replacing the targetFrameworks with <TargetFrameworks>net472</TargetFrameworks> This will function as a normal class library but will automatically include files and has a better dependency view in VS.

To move the generated files into the new project you will need to set the follow

Umbraco.ModelsBuilder.AcceptUnsafeModelsDirectory="true"

Umbraco.ModelsBuilder.ModelsDirectory="../../<path to the folder you want them in"

On an environment you are not generating models remove these two settings via transforms.

I hope this helps

Matt

EDIT full details of these settings can be found here