There used to be a really sweet macro for Visual Studio that would automatically run T4MVC templates on build. Unfortunately, macro support has been removed from Visual Studio 2012+, so this is an extension that will do the same thing (and more).
T4MVC templates are run under the following conditions (all string comparisons are case-insensitive):
- a project or solution containing the template is built
- a file in a "Controllers" folder is saved (in the same project)
- the settings file "T4MVC.tt.settings.xml" (or "T4MVC.tt.settings.t4") is saved (in the same project)
- a file is added/removed/renamed in a folder named "Assets", "Content", "Controllers", "CSS", "Images", "JS", "Scripts", "Styles" or "Views" (in the same project)
Note: Drag/drop in the Solution Explorer will not trigger the templates to re-run, as the added/removed events are not fired.
Chirpy and AutoTT do similar things, but Chirpy is overkill if all you want is your T4MVC templates built and I think AutoTT requires configuration.
Just build and install the template using the VSIX file, grab it from the Visual Studio gallery or do it the easy way and use the 'Extension & Updates' manager in Visual Studio 2012, 2013, 2015 or 2017.