Why .NET Standard 2 build references many assemblies instead of single netstandard.dll assembly
问题 Unlike .NET Standard 1, .NET Standard 2 introduces a single netstandard.dll reference assembly. However, when compiling (with .NET Core SDK 2.2.203) with dotnet build we can see that it adds references to many assemblies (113), all under netstandard.library/2.0.3/build/netstandard2.0/ref/*.dll . One of these references is netstandard.dll . $ grep TargetFramework *.csproj <TargetFramework>netstandard2.0</TargetFramework> $ dotnet build --verbosity normal | grep -o netstandard.library/2.0.3