I used xbuild, but from Mono, not .NET Core (maybe .NET Core has it too). It builds standard Visual Studio 'msbuild' files (.sln, .csproj, .fsproj). It works okay and these XML files are editable by hand but still somewhat creepy. I tried only F# so I used .fsproj build files and was able to do everything even without Visual Studio Code (in Emacs).
There's also tools called Paket and Fake which look like .NET counterparts of Ruby's Bundler and Rake, created by F# community. Paket patches .fsproj/.csproj files and it looks like hack but still better than putting absolute paths to preinstalled dependencies.
For creating new projects from template, Yeoman (installable from npm) is quite popular.
Build process in .NET looks like is in transitional state from Visual Studio-first to build tools-first and is still painful and confusing. I didn't try project.json / dotnet tooling yet, because F# website doesn't mention it. I tried only F# and Monogame.
There's also tools called Paket and Fake which look like .NET counterparts of Ruby's Bundler and Rake, created by F# community. Paket patches .fsproj/.csproj files and it looks like hack but still better than putting absolute paths to preinstalled dependencies.
For creating new projects from template, Yeoman (installable from npm) is quite popular.
Build process in .NET looks like is in transitional state from Visual Studio-first to build tools-first and is still painful and confusing. I didn't try project.json / dotnet tooling yet, because F# website doesn't mention it. I tried only F# and Monogame.