Removing appsettings.Development.json when deploying an ASP.NET Core website via GitHub Action

Question

I have an ASP.NET Core 7 project deployed with GitHub Actions.

Internally the appsettings.Development.json is pushed into Git as all the developers are using the same setting.

But this file is not needed on deployment and may cause an unintended behaviour if used by mistake or even if compromised.

I didn't find an option to filter out this file at GitHub Actions actions/checkout@v3. We have also looked at an option to delete is with Jesse Remove but that didn't work and even if it works it would have been a patch rather than a proper solution.

Is there any solution to:

Mark it as "no publish" from the .csproj or a similar setting

OR

Eliminate it with GitHub Actions

Dimitris Maragkos · Accepted Answer · 2023-02-09 11:41:51Z

4

You can add this to your .csproj to remove appsettings.Development.json from publish:

<Project ...>
  ...

  <ItemGroup>
    <Content Update="appsettings.Development.json">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory>
    </Content>
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

answered Feb 9, 2023 at 11:41

Dimitris Maragkos

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1 Comment

Adam Over a year ago

Worked, let me see other answers before accepting.

Leo Lloyd Andrade · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-11 09:26:28Z

1

I use this to remove development config in a release build:

  <!-- Exclude appsettings.Development.json in release build -->
  <ItemGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Release'">
    <Content Remove="appsettings.Development.json"></Content>
  </ItemGroup>

answered Oct 11, 2024 at 9:26

Leo Lloyd Andrade

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Comments

Juliusz · Accepted Answer · 2025-08-19 11:46:06Z

0

The approved solution works for publishing, but not for the standard build. I did not like the idea of removal, so I went the opposite way:

<ItemGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)' == 'Debug'">
  <None Update="appsettings.Development.json">
    <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
  </None>
</ItemGroup>

answered Aug 19 at 11:46

Juliusz

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