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Full build skipped for Native AOT publish

Starting in .NET 11, the .NET SDK no longer executes the full Build target when publishing with Native AOT (PublishAot=true). Instead, the SDK executes only the minimum targets needed to compile the intermediate assembly and produce the AOT-compiled output.

Version introduced

.NET 11 RC 2

Previous behavior

When publishing with PublishAot=true, the full MSBuild Build target executed as part of the publish pipeline, producing a complete self-contained managed deployment (apphost, DLLs, deps.json, runtimeconfig.json, and runtime pack files) in the output (bin\) directory. These artifacts were unused by the AOT pipeline, which reads from @(IntermediateAssembly) in obj\, not from bin\.

New behavior

The .NET SDK runs only the targets needed to compile the intermediate assembly and produce the Native AOT publish output. It no longer runs the full Build target or produces the unused managed deployment in bin\.

Consequently, build extensibility points that aren't part of compilation don't run during Native AOT publish. These include BeforeBuild, AfterBuild, PreBuildEvent, PostBuildEvent, BeforeTargets="Build", AfterTargets="Build", and targets added to BuildDependsOn.

Type of breaking change

This change is a behavioral change.

Reason for change

This change reduces customer confusion about which binaries to deploy and improves Native AOT publish performance. Deployable binaries are produced only in the publish directory.

Update custom MSBuild targets to attach to the specific phase whose outputs they affect:

  • For generated source or other compiler inputs, use BeforeTargets="CoreCompile".
  • For logic that consumes the compiled assembly, use AfterTargets="Compile" and consume @(IntermediateAssembly) rather than $(TargetPath).
  • For additional files that should be copied to the publish directory, declare them as Content items with CopyToPublishDirectory, or add them to @(ResolvedFileToPublish) before ComputeResolvedFilesToPublishList.
  • For logic that processes the completed publish output, use AfterTargets="Publish".

For example:

<Target Name="GenerateSources" BeforeTargets="CoreCompile">
  <!-- Generate source and add it to @(Compile). -->
</Target>

<Target Name="ProcessCompiledAssembly" AfterTargets="Compile">
  <!-- Consume @(IntermediateAssembly), which is produced in obj\. -->
</Target>

Targets that require the managed deployment previously produced in bin\ can't use optimized publish. To restore the previous behavior, set UseOptimizedPublish to false in the project file:

<PropertyGroup>
  <UseOptimizedPublish>false</UseOptimizedPublish>
</PropertyGroup>

Alternatively, pass it on the command line:

dotnet publish /p:UseOptimizedPublish=false

Affected APIs

None.

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