Publishing a C# project in Visual Studio does not automatically update it

Publishing in Visual Studio only copies the files that the build system considers as publish outputs. If no project items have changed since the last publish, Visual Studio reports “Everything is up to date” and doesn’t republish.

The behavior described typically occurs when:

• The publish profile is already built and published, and no new build/publish items are detected as changed.
• Switching profiles forces a rebuild/publish of the project, which is why the output updates after toggling between profiles.

To address this, use one of these approaches:

1. Ensure a build is triggered before publish
   • When selecting Publish in Visual Studio, the normal sequence is:
     1. Compute build properties/items.
     2. Restore NuGet packages (Visual Studio only).
     3. Build the project.
     4. Compute publish items.
     5. Copy publish items to the publish destination.
   • If the project or profile is in a state where the build step is skipped or considered up to date, the publish step will also be skipped and show “Everything is up to date.”
2. Force a rebuild before publishing
   • Use Build → Rebuild Solution (or Rebuild on the project) before clicking Publish. This ensures that all outputs are regenerated and then republished.
3. Check which files are included as publish items
   • Only files in the computed publish item list are copied. For ASP.NET Core projects, for example, this includes:
     • Build outputs
     • Content items such as wwwroot/**, **/*.config, **/*.json, **/*.cshtml, and **/*.razor.
   • If changes are made to files that are not part of these items, the publish step may not detect anything to update.
4. Verify and, if needed, recreate the publish profile
   • Open the Publish tab, confirm the target and folder path, and if the behavior persists, create a new publish profile and use it going forward.
5. If using dotnet publish or CI/CD
   • Ensure the configuration matches what Visual Studio expects (for example, Release vs Debug) and that the output paths in scripts or pipelines are aligned with the profile’s configuration.

These steps ensure that the build system detects changes and that the publish profile correctly rebuilds and republishes the updated outputs without needing to toggle profiles.

References:

• Visual Studio publish profiles (.pubxml) for ASP.NET Core app deployment
• 'dotnet publish' uses Release configuration