runtimesettings.dev.json is gone ; surprising breakage

[jhudsoncedaron]

Describe the bug

runtimesettings.dev.json is gone: can't detect running from the dev output directory (as opposed to publish) and can't find location of nuget stores at runtime

To Reproduce

Build any executable project ; check for bin\Debug\net6.0%PROJECT%.runtimesettings.dev.json

Exceptions (if any)

Throws Missing RID win10-x64; but that's a complete red herring.

What's actually going on is in development, the transitive dependencies of the reflection-load binaries aren't copied to the build output directory (as it should be). At runtime, trying to load them with reflection does not work because their dependencies can't be loaded because the location of the nuget stores has not been set because runtimesettings.dev.json is missing.

Further technical details

.NET SDK (reflecting any global.json):
Version: 6.0.201
Commit: ef40e6a

Runtime Environment:
OS Name: Windows
OS Version: 10.0.19044
OS Platform: Windows
RID: win10-x64
Base Path: C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\6.0.201\

Host (useful for support):
Version: 6.0.3
Commit: c24d9a9c91

[jhudsoncedaron]

From the PR: it looks like this should work (just putting back the lines that were removed), but it doesn't because TargetDir is uninitialized (too early?)

<GenerateRuntimeConfigDevFile>true</GenerateRuntimeConfigDevFile>
<ProjectRuntimeConfigDevFilePath>$(TargetDir)$(AssemblyName).runtimeconfig.dev.json</ProjectRuntimeConfigDevFilePath>

[marcpopMSFT]

#16818

Is setting GenerateRuntimeConfigDevFile to true not sufficient?

[jhudsoncedaron]

@marcpopMSFT : Indeed it does work placing that property alone, but I'm convinced I'm in straight up undocumented territory that way. All I got in a search was one stackoverflow post and links into Microsoft.NET.Sdk.targets itself.

[marcpopMSFT]

I went ahead and filed a breaking change issue in our docs repo so hopefully we can get that added to the breaking change list. Thanks for noticing the missing documentation and sorry about that. We typically label issues/PRs for breaking change notices but missed this one: dotnet/docs#28810

[jhudsoncedaron]

@marcpopMSFT : Ok, so there's the documentation issue with this pathway becoming a properly documented pathway. I'm going to close this now.