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The
dotnet publish
command
now uses the
Release
configuration instead of the
Debug
configuration by default if the target framework is .NET 8 or a later version.
Previous behavior
Previously,
dotnet publish
used the
Debug
configuration unless the configuration was specified explicitly or
PublishRelease
was set to
true
.
The
PublishRelease
property
was added in .NET 7 as a path forward to this breaking change. Previously, you could set the
DOTNET_CLI_ENABLE_PUBLISH_RELEASE_FOR_SOLUTIONS
environment variable to use
PublishRelease
in a project that was part of a Visual Studio solution.
New behavior
If you're developing with the .NET 8 SDK or a later version,
dotnet publish
uses the
Release
configuration by default for projects whose
TargetFramework
is set to
net8.0
or a later version. If you have a CI/CD script, tests, or code where you've hardcoded
Debug
into an output path, this change may break your workflow.
If your project targets multiple versions, the new behavior only applies if you specify a target framework of .NET 8 or later when you publish (for example, using
dotnet publish -f net8.0
).
For projects in a solution:
dotnet publish
can publish all the projects in a Visual Studio solution if given a solution file. For the solution projects that target .NET 8 or later, the value of
PublishRelease
is implicitly set to
true
if it's undefined. However, in order for
dotnet publish
to determine the correct configuration to use for the solution, all projects in the solution must agree on their value of
PublishRelease
. If an older project in the solution has
PublishRelease
set to
false
, you should explicitly set the property to
false
for any new .NET 8+ projects as well.
This change might cause the performance of
dotnet publish
to regress, especially for solutions that contain many projects. To address this, a new environment variable
DOTNET_CLI_LAZY_PUBLISH_AND_PACK_RELEASE_FOR_SOLUTIONS
has been introduced.
The
DOTNET_CLI_ENABLE_PUBLISH_RELEASE_FOR_SOLUTIONS
environment variable is no longer recognized.
Version introduced
.NET 8 Preview 1
Type of breaking change
This change can affect
source compatibility
and is also a
behavioral change
.
Reason for change
In most cases when you publish, you want your code to be optimized and can keep the app smaller by excluding debugging information. Customers have asked for
Release
to be the default configuration for
publish
for a long time. Also, Visual Studio has had this behavior for many years.
The
DOTNET_CLI_ENABLE_PUBLISH_RELEASE_FOR_SOLUTIONS
environment variable was removed since the behavior it enabled is now the default behavior and the granular control is no longer necessary.
Recommended action
To disable the new behavior entirely, you can set the
DOTNET_CLI_DISABLE_PUBLISH_AND_PACK_RELEASE
environment variable to
true
(or any other value). This variable affects both
dotnet publish
and
dotnet pack
.
To explicitly specify the
Debug
configuration for publishing, use the
-c
or
--configuration
option with
dotnet publish
.
If your CI/CD pipeline is broken due to hardcoded output paths, update the paths to
Release
instead of
Debug
, disable the new behavior using the
DOTNET_CLI_DISABLE_PUBLISH_AND_PACK_RELEASE
environment variable, or specify that the
Debug
configuration should be used.
If you're publishing a solution and it's broken, you can explicitly set
PublishRelease
to
true
(or
false
to revert to the previous behavior).
<PropertyGroup>
<PublishRelease>true</PublishRelease>
</PropertyGroup>
Alternatively, you can specify the property in a Directory.Build.Props file. However, if you set it false in this file, you'll still need to explicitly set the property to false in the .NET 8+ projects in the solution. Similarly, if some projects explicitly set a value that's different from the value in the Directory.Build.Props file, publish will fail.
If you're publishing a solution and the performance has regressed, you can set the DOTNET_CLI_LAZY_PUBLISH_AND_PACK_RELEASE_FOR_SOLUTIONS environment variable to true (or any other value) to remove the regression. However, if you set this variable and your solution contains a .NET 8+ project and a project that targets .NET 7 or earlier, publishing will fail until all projects define PublishRelease. This variable affects both dotnet publish and dotnet pack.
See also
'dotnet pack' uses Release configuration
