dotnet publish doesn´t publish correct appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json

Question

When I issue the following command in the command line:

dotnet publish -o \"./../output\" -c Release

The dotnetcli publishes the pr

Answer 1

Discovered a three-step build in Visual Studio approach for publishing environment-specific appsetting files (Windows, PowerShell).

• appsettings.json
• appsettings.Development.json
• appsettings.Staging.json
• appsettings.Production.json

This approach will publish

• appsettings.json and
• appsettings.$(ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT).json.

Step 1. Update csproj:

Step 2. Set an environment variable in PowerShell:

  # Read
  [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT", "User")
  # Output: empty string if not set or 'Staging' in my case
  # Set environment variable "User" or "Machine" level
  [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT", "Staging", "User")

Step 3. Then close and reopen Visual Studio solution to enable Visual Studio to see the environment variable and reload project structure accordingly.

• Now appsettings.json is a parent and appsettings.Staging.json is a nested file.
• If you set another environment (for example "Production") and then close and Visual Studio and reopen your solution, then you will appsettings.json as a parent and appsettings.Production.json as a nested file.

Final step. Run publishing.

Note: publishing profile environment variables do not affect publishing configuration. This approach uses PowerShell to set an environment variable and enables environment-specific publishing. Please see link for more details on environment variables.