Visual Studio publish generates .pdb file despite using DebugType=None

I'm publishing a console app from within Visual Studio using the following publish profile:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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-->
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <PublishProtocol>FileSystem</PublishProtocol>
    <Configuration>Release</Configuration>
    <Platform>x64</Platform>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp5.0</TargetFramework>
    <PublishDir>bin\Release\netcoreapp5.0\publish\</PublishDir>
    <RuntimeIdentifier>win10-x64</RuntimeIdentifier>
    <SelfContained>False</SelfContained>
    <PublishSingleFile>True</PublishSingleFile>
    <PublishReadyToRun>True</PublishReadyToRun>
    <IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract>True</IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract>

    <DebugType>none</DebugType>
    <DebugSymbols>false</DebugSymbols>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

My goal is to not emit any .pdb files (debug symbols) in the publish output folder.
This doesn't completely work as intended.

The .pdb file of the console app project is not generated - as expected, but the debug symbols for the business logic project it references is for some reason generated. Is this a bug?

I can hack this by adding a conditional statement to the project file of the business logic library, but that it something I'd like to avoid as I think all the relevant information for publishing the app should reside in the publish profile.

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|AnyCPU'">
   <DebugType>none</DebugType>
   <DebugSymbols>false</DebugSymbols>
</PropertyGroup>

Solution

<DebugType>none</DebugType><DebugSymbols>false</DebugSymbols> will only prevent the generation of the current project's pdb file. And if your main project referenced a second project, these nodes will not prevent the the second project's pdb file in the main project. This is designed by that.

And if you want to prevent the referenced project's pdb file being generated into the publish folder of the main project, you should use this node additionally:

<AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>*.pdb</AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>

Solution

Add these in your pubxml file:

<DebugType>none</DebugType>
<DebugSymbols>false</DebugSymbols>
<AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>*.pdb</AllowedReferenceRelatedFileExtensions>