Visual Studio will reference those databases when working with your project without adding those databases' objects to your project. With that, you have a database project. I realize I haven't shown ...

Visual Studio includes SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) as part of its architecture for developing SQL Server relational databases. You can design databases for SQL Server, Azure SQL DB, and Azure SQL ...

Untangle SQL Server connection strings Today’s README file explains how to create connection strings to SQL Server databases using Visual Studio’s built-in tools.