Autofac cannot be found in release pipeline - azure

Question

I have a program MyProgram.csproj (which happens to be a .NET Core console app) and I am copying it's build (bin\netcoreapp2.2) into the release pipeline and trying to run it MyProgram.dll through Powershell as a task.
When I do so I get the error
2019-08-14T01:35:58.1153997Z An assembly specified in the application dependencies manifest (MyProgram.deps.json) was not found:
2019-08-14T01:35:58.1154837Z package: 'Autofac', version: '4.2.1'
2019-08-14T01:35:58.1155904Z path: 'lib/netstandard1.1/Autofac.dll'
The reference is
"Autofac/4.2.1": {
"dependencies": {
"System.ComponentModel": "4.0.1"
},
"runtime": {
"lib/netstandard1.1/Autofac.dll": {
"assemblyVersion": "4.2.1.0",
"fileVersion": "4.2.1.0"
}
}
}
Any way I can get more information about why this assembly cannot be found?

Answer 1

Can you try adding the following to my .csproj:
<PropertyGroup>
<PublishWithAspNetCoreTargetManifest>false</PublishWithAspNetCoreTargetManifest>
</PropertyGroup>
and try updating all the references on the project

Answer 2

The better way to get rid of dependency chaos is to deploy a self-contained publish, so that includes .NET Core libraries, the .NET Core runtime and referenced package dependencies.
Following this link, you can determine the runtime identifier (e.g. win-x64) and the configuration settings for release or debug builds.
dotnet publish .\MyProgram.csproj -c Release -r "win-x64" --self-contained -o .\publish
You can either use the dotnet extension in the build definition or add a powershell inline command to run the mention codes.
YAML Example
resources:
- repo: self
queue:
name: DefaultAgentPool
steps:
- task: NuGetCommand#2
displayName: 'NuGet restore'
inputs:
feedsToUse: config
nugetConfigPath: nuget.config
- powershell: |
# Write your powershell commands here.
Write-Host "Starting dotnet cli publish command ..."
dotnet publish --runtime "win-x64" -o $(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory) -c Release --self-contained
workingDirectory: src/Project
displayName: 'dotnet publish'
- task: PublishBuildArtifacts#1
displayName: 'Publish Artifact: win'
inputs:
ArtifactName: win-publish
This makes you sure that you're not going to get any dependency error in the specified runtime platform.