Build individual batch of projects from solution

Question

I have a solution with multiple projects, 2 of which are the main projects. A .NET WinForms desktop app and an ASP.NET WebApi2.

I have defined a number of publish profiles in Server project, which currently I execute manually. Now, moving to an Azure build pipeline I have a couple of questions:

1. I create a new pipeline based on the ASP.NET template, which builds all the projects within the solution. Should I leave as is, or should I exclude the client-side projects. If yes, then how can I achieve this?

2. I'm used to Visual Studio building and publishing just afterwards. In a CI/CD scenario, I assume that the I need to separate the building and publishing/deploying. Is this correct?

Answer 1

It all depends, you may use the same pipeline do build WinForms to create a package/installer. It is all up to you. If you want to exclude you may do it creating configuration

Configuration Manager -> Active Solution Configuration -> New ... and then you will define what project you want to build. Next you will use this configuration in your build to just compile project you want.

You may pass configuration here.

If you use YAML pipeline instead of classic you may consider using multi stage pipeline. Here you have documentation and here a simple tutorial. If you decide to have one pipeline please check deployment jobs for deploying your app, however this is not necessary.

You you secleted classic pipeline you should go with classic release pipelines.