dotnet publish with --no-build broken after dotnet 7 upgrade

Question

In our CI/CD pipeline we're using cake to script our builds. Those scripts have been working fine for years but have broken with the installation of the Visual Studio 17.4 which in turn installed dotnet 7 SDK along with MSBuild 17.4. I'm not sure who's causing our issue.

As cake is not at cause here, I'll include the dotnet commands it generates, which are printed with --verbosity=diagnostic

Restore nuget packages: "C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe" restore "Infrastructure.LogAggregator.sln"

Build application: "C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe" build "Infrastructure.LogAggregator.sln" --configuration Release --no-restore

Publish the built application: "C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe" publish "Infrastructure.LogAggregator/Infrastructure.LogAggregator.csproj" --output "C:/Users/uapwa/AppData/Local/Temp/Infrastructure.LogAggregator-75cea93a-9955-4907-925e-89c2fac4fc03" --framework net6.0 --configuration Release --no-build --self-contained true

The publishing step (which worked before the update) now leads to this error:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.100\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.PackageDependencyResolution.targets(267,5): error NETSDK1047: Assets file 'D:\Dev\Infrastructure.LogAggregator\Source\Infrastructure.LogAggregator\obj\project.assets.json' doesn't have a target for 'net6.0/win-x64'. Ensure that restore has run and that you have included 'net6.0' in the TargetFrameworks for your project. You may also need to include 'win-x64' in your project's RuntimeIdentifiers. [ D:\Dev\Infrastructure.LogAggregator\Source\Infrastructure.LogAggregator\Infrastructure.LogAggregator.csproj]

What leads to this error? I couldn't find release notes for dotnet and/or msbuild helping me understand why this popping up. What is the proper way to handle this?

I've found two ways to fix this issue, but I'd like to understand why this has now become required; respectively, what has changed?

1. Include the RuntimeIdentifier in the project file (as specified by the publish error)

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
    <Version>0.0.0.1</Version>
    <AssemblyVersion>0.0.0.1</AssemblyVersion>
    <FileVersion>0.0.0.1</FileVersion>
    <RuntimeIdentifier>win-x64</RuntimeIdentifier>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
  </PropertyGroup>

I don't see a reason the RuntimeIdentifier has to be specified in the project itself. If specifying for the build itself with "C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe" build "Infrastructure.LogAggregator.sln" --runtime win-x64 --configuration Release --no-restore it leads to this error

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\7.0.100\Current\SolutionFile\ImportAfter\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Solution.targets(27,5): error NETSDK1134: Building a solution with a specific RuntimeIdentifier is not supported. If you would like to publish for a single RID, specifiy the RID at the individual project level instead. [D:\Dev\Infrastructure.LogAggregator\Source\Infrastructure.LogAggregator.sln]

2. Let the app be built while publishing it

"C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe" publish "Infrastructure.LogAggregator/Infrastructure.LogAggregator.csproj" --output "C:/Users/uapwa/AppData/Local/Temp/Infrastructure.LogAggregator-145e3f13-8442-4e7b-9ebc-ed0cee7aafd3" --framework net6.0 --configuration Release --self-contained true

Please find the relevant cake targets, generating the above dotnet commands below:

Task("Restore-NuGet-Packages")
    .IsDependentOn("Clean")
    .Does(() => {
        DotNetRestore(_solutionPath);
        Information($"Restored nuget packages for solution '{_solutionPath}'.");
    });

Task("Build")
    .IsDependentOn("Clean")
    .IsDependentOn("Restore-NuGet-Packages")
    .Does(() => {
        DotNetBuild(
            _solutionPath,
            new DotNetBuildSettings{
                NoRestore = true,
                Configuration = _configuration
            }
        );
        Information($"Finished building solution '{_solutionPath}'.");
    });

Task ("Release")
    .IsDependentOn("Clean")
    .IsDependentOn("Release-Prepare")
    .IsDependentOn("Copy-Configurations")
    .IsDependentOn("Build")
    .Does(() => {
        // Deploy to temp directory
        var deployPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.IO.Path.GetTempPath(), $"{_applicationBaseName}-{Guid.NewGuid()}");
        Information($"Deploying application to temporary directory '{deployPath}'");

        // Publish the new version
        var publishSettings = new DotNetPublishSettings
                              {
                                  Framework = "net6.0",
                                  Configuration = _configuration,
                                  OutputDirectory = deployPath,
                                  SelfContained = true,
                                  NoBuild = true
                              };
        DotNetPublish(_applicationProjectPath, publishSettings);
        Information($"Deployed application to temporary directory '{deployPath}'.");

        // Zip deployed contents and save it to release path
        var zipOutputPath = System.IO.Path.Combine(_releasePath, $"{_applicationBaseName}-{_applicationVersion}.zip");

        Zip(deployPath, zipOutputPath);
        Information($"Saved zipped application to'{zipOutputPath}'.");

        // Delete temp deploy directory
        System.IO.Directory.Delete(deployPath, true);
        Information($"Deleted temporary deploy directory '{deployPath}'.");
    });