The same assembly is loaded multiple times if it passed as multiple --custom-step arguments

[rolfbjarne]

The same assembly is loaded once for each --custom-step argument.

My guess is because it's loaded using the Assembly.Load(byte[]) overload: https://github.com/mono/linker/blob/da2cc0fcd6c3a8e8e5d1b5d4a655f3653baa8980/src/linker/Linker/Driver.cs#L723

This is quite confusing if you have static state in one step you expect to be around in subsequent steps (it also means that if I want to share state between steps, I have to resort to ugly workarounds.

[rolfbjarne]

Another effect of loading the custom step assembly as a byte array is that no debug information will be loaded, so stack traces won't include source code information (not even if the embedding the debug information in the dll), and neither is it possible to debug using VSCode.