ASP.NET Core: Exclude or include files on publish

Question

There were before aspdotnet1.0 include/exclude sections on project.json file

{
  \"exclude\": [
    \"node_modules\",
    \"bower_c         


        

Answer 1

In my case I need local.settings.json locally during debug, but I do not want it included in my WebDeploy zip file during Release builds or Publish:

  <ItemGroup>
    <Content Include="..\local.settings.json" Link="local.settings.json" Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|AnyCPU'">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="..\local.settings.json" Link="local.settings.json" Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|AnyCPU'">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Never</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
  </ItemGroup>

**

Answer 2

After Visual Studio 2017 15.3

Edit the .csproj file to manually exclude files/folder from being published

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Remove="src\**" />
  <Content Remove="node_modules\**" />
</ItemGroup>

ref: https://www.danielcrabtree.com/blog/273/fixing-the-duplicate-content-error-after-upgrading-visual-studio-2017

Answer 3

For Visual Studio 2019, I managed to exclued a wwwroot subfolder named "dummy" (including all subfolders of "dummy") from publish output using the following code:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Update="wwwroot\dummy\**\*">
    <CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory>
  </Content>
</ItemGroup>

Note: The requirement was to keep the wwwroot and its subfolder(s) included in project but just exclude while publishing.