Include web.release.config in Web Deploy output

Question

By default when publishing a Web project using MSBuild/Visual Studio the config transforms are applied.

I would like to include the config transforms within the output.

Input

web.config  
web.Debug.config   
web.Release.config  

Default Output

web.config

Desired output

web.config  
web.Debug.config   
web.Release.config  

Answer 1

Include web.release.config in Web Deploy output

By default, when publishing a website, VS does not package web.debug.config and web.release.config but only the web.config.

To achieve what you want, you can add a custom target into publishprofile.pubxml to include these extra files.

Please try this:

<Target Name="CustomCollectFiles">
          <ItemGroup>
            <AdditionFiles Include="xxxxxxxxxxx\Web.Debug.config;xxxxxxxxx\Web.Release.config">
            </AdditionFiles>
            <FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="%(AdditionFiles.Identity)">
               <DestinationRelativePath>%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
            </FilesForPackagingFromProject>
          </ItemGroup>
     </Target>
     <PropertyGroup>
          <CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
               CustomCollectFiles;
               $(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn);
          </CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>

          <CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn>
               CustomCollectFiles;
               $(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn);
          </CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn>
     </PropertyGroup>

And then you will find these files in the Publish folder when you finishing Publish step.

Hope it could help you.