Overview

Single-file deployment bundles all application-dependent files into a single binary. This deployment method is supported for both framework-dependent and self-contained apps.

Documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file/overview?tabs=cli

Publishing a Single-file App

Update the project file:
csproj

<PropertyGroup>
     <PublishSingleFile>true</PublishSingleFile>
</PropertyGroup>

Publish the app for a specific runtime identifier:
```
dotnet publish -r <runtime-identifier>
```

Alternatively, an app can be published as a single file without updating the project file:

dotnet publish -r <runtime-identifier> -p:PublishSingleFile=true --self-contained <true|false>

Considerations

Excluding Certain Files

Update the project file:
csproj

<ItemGroup>
    <Content Update="Plugin.dll">
        <!-- Copies the file to the Publish directory but does not include it 
             in the deployment: -->
        <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
        <ExcludeFromSingleFile>true</ExcludeFromSingleFile>
    </Content>
</ItemGroup>

Including PDB files

Single-file apps have all related PDB files not bundled by default.
To change this, update the project file:
csproj

<PropertyGroup>
    <DebugType>embedded</DebugType>
</PropertyGroup>

Compress Assemblies

Set the EnableCompressionInSingleFile property to true. All embedded assemblies will be compressed.

Note: this has a performance cost.

Inspecting Single-file Apps

Use ILSpy. This tool can inspect the contents of a single-file bundle.