Use non-boolean self-contained arguments for dotnet publish

[peymanr34]

Prerequisites

• I have written a descriptive issue title
• I have searched issues to ensure it has not already been reported

Cake runner

Cake .NET Tool

Cake version

6.0.0

Operating system

Windows

Operating system architecture

x64

CI Server

No response

What are you seeing?

According to the sources mentioned below and this comment we should be using --no-self-contained instead of --self-contained false to publish framework-dependent applications.

--self-contained false has no impact - the --self-contained option, while accepting a boolean, only ever sets the SelfContained MSbuild property to true. you want --no-self-contained to disable self-contained builds.

In the official dotnet publish docs, the --self-contained false argument has been mentioned only once (just in the examples) and it's usage seems discouraged.

See Also:

• dotnet.exe version 10 ignores the flag --self-contained false and builds the self-contained executable if the option p:PublishSingleFile=true is set dotnet/sdk#51888
• Visual Studio Publish produces much smaller framework-dependent single-file exe than dotnet publish with identical settings dotnet/sdk#52298
• https://joefinapps.com/2025/12/26/are-your-net-10-framework-dependent-not-self-contained-exes-5x-larger-than-they-were-on-net-9/

What is expected?

The --self-contained and --no-self-contained arguments should be used.

Steps to Reproduce

• Run the following task:

var configuration = Argument("configuration", "Release");
var runtime = Argument("app-runtime", "win-x64");
var selfContained = Argument<bool>("app-self-contained", false);

Task("Publish")
    .Does(() =>
{
    DotNetPublish("./Source/Project.csproj", new DotNetPublishSettings
    {
        NoRestore = true,
        OutputDirectory = "./Setup/Files",
        Configuration = configuration,
        Runtime = runtime,
        SelfContained = selfContained,
    });
});

Output log

Executing task: Publish
Resolved tool to path C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe
Executing: "C:/Program Files/dotnet/dotnet.exe" publish "./Source/Project.csproj" --output "F:/<omitted>/Setup/Files" --runtime win-x64 --configuration Release --no-restore --self-contained false 

[github-actions]

🎉 This issue has been resolved in version v6.1.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• GitHub Release
• .NET Tool

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