How to Publish DOT NET MVC Applications Using MSBuild.exe

In this post, you will find two ways to publish project artifact using MsBuild.exe. 

In this example solution (Visual Studio Community 2019 Version), I have created 2 Projects with MVC Application and an API project. 

 Note: Both Projects are created on .NET framework 4.8, However, I have tested with .NET Core 6.0 Projects created using Visual Studio Professional/Community versions successfully. 

Here is my Project Structure for the demo.

Option 1 - Create a publish profile for the project. DevOpsProfile.pubxml

<project>
  <propertygroup>
    <deleteexistingfiles>True</deleteexistingfiles>
    <excludeapp_data>False</excludeapp_data>
    <launchsiteafterpublish>True</launchsiteafterpublish>
    <lastusedbuildconfiguration>Release</lastusedbuildconfiguration>
    <lastusedplatform>Any CPU</lastusedplatform>
    <publishprovider>FileSystem</publishprovider>
    <publishurl>bin\Release</publishurl>
    <webpublishmethod>FileSystem</webpublishmethod>
    <siteurltolaunchafterpublish>
  </siteurltolaunchafterpublish></propertygroup>
</project>

 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe" ".\DevOpsApplication.sln" /p:Configuration="Release" /t:Rebuild /t:Restore /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:PublishProfile="DevOpsProfile" 

Option 2 - Without using a publish profile, define all the properties inline with MsBuild.exe

 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\MSBuild\Current\Bin\MSBuild.exe" ^
	".\DevOpsApplication.sln" ^
	/t:Rebuild ^
	/t:Restore ^
	/p:Configuration=Release ^
	/p:DeployOnBuild=True ^
	/p:DeployDefaultTarget=WebPublish ^
	/p:WebPublishMethod=FileSystem ^
	/p:DeleteExistingFiles=True ^
	/p:PublishUrl="bin\Release"

Note: The first parameter is added as the solution name. So it will publish all the Web and Api projects which you have in the solution. 

Output folders

MVC Web Project Artifacts using MsBuild.exe

Api Project Artifacts using MsBuild.exe