Fix nightly test restore with Central Package Management

[rosebyte]

Fixes NU1010 when restoring Microsoft.ML.NightlyBuild.Tests or the full solution.

The Central Package Management conversion removed the placeholder versions from the nightly package references without adding corresponding PackageVersion items. This caused solution restore, including restore initiated by C# Dev Kit, to fail.

Changes

• Add placeholder PackageVersion items for the nightly-build dependencies.
• Add the placeholder Microsoft.ML package version used by TestFrameworkDependency.props.
• Update Microsoft.ML.NugetPackageVersionUpdater to rewrite PackageVersion items instead of PackageReference items.
• Preserve the nightly pipeline behaviour, where placeholder versions are replaced with the latest nightly package versions.

Validation

• Restored Microsoft.ML.NightlyBuild.Tests with ReferenceTypeForTestFramework=NuGet.
• Restored the full Microsoft.ML.sln.
• Built Microsoft.ML.NugetPackageVersionUpdater.
• Verified that the updater replaces versions in both dependency props files.

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

All reviewed changes address the restore issue and preserve expected nightly behavior.

Pull request overview

Fixes Central Package Management restore failures for nightly tests and the full solution while preserving nightly version replacement behavior.

Changes:

• Adds placeholder PackageVersion entries for nightly and test framework dependencies.
• Updates the nightly package version updater to modify PackageVersion items.

File summaries

File	Description
test/TestFrameworkDependency.props	Adds the Microsoft.ML placeholder version.
test/NightlyBuildDependency.props	Adds placeholder versions for nightly dependencies.
test/Microsoft.ML.NugetPackageVersionUpdater/Program.cs	Updates central package versions during nightly builds.

Review details

• Files reviewed: 3/3 changed files
• Comments generated: 0
• Review effort level: Lite

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[matouskozak]

Looking good.

I'm curious, what plan do you have for the nightly runs? I'm not really sure why they got disabled in the pass, but we could definitely re-enable them if we thing it is worthy. My immediate thinking is that we could use it to run some deeper integration tests or some performance regression tests. Or we can revisit what configs we run on PRs and maybe move some less important jobs to nightly runs.

Just one thing to consider, that if we introduce nightly test runs, we should introduce it together with a monitoring system (e.g., agentic workflow) so that they remain healthy and don't regress often. cc: @svick as you were doing a lot of CI lately.

[rosebyte]

Well, agentic workflow is definitely an option when we will see the pipeline runs have enough value, first we need to try to get the pipeline to that point. I wonder if it could be a good place for more complicated e2e training and inference tests taking hours and therefore unfeasible for main/pr pipelines.