Support boolean values for --self-contained flag by Copilot · Pull Request #52333 · dotnet/sdk

Copilot · 2026-01-06T21:10:15Z

Plan: Support boolean values for --self-contained flag

Analysis

The issue is that customers pass --self-contained true/false but the CLI currently ignores the false value. The ForwardIfEnabled method only forwards when the boolean is true.

Changes Required

Implementation Details

✅ Changed SelfContainedOption to forward both true and false values using ForwardAsMany
✅ Kept NoSelfContainedOption for backward compatibility with --no-self-contained
✅ Validation correctly detects conflicts between --self-contained and --no-self-contained options
✅ Manual testing verified:
- --self-contained=false → framework-dependent (5 files)
- --self-contained=true → self-contained (192 files)
- --self-contained (no value) → self-contained (192 files)
- --self-contained=true --no-self-contained → error (as expected)
✅ Merged origin/release/10.0.3xx and resolved conflicts (commit a8e061b)
✅ Applied @baronfel's feedback: Changed from bool? to bool to simplify implementation (commit f1a9e82)
- System.CommandLine always provides a value for bool options, so nullable is unnecessary
- Removed HasValue check and directly use the bool value
- Reverted type changes in RunCommandDefinition, BuildCommandDefinition, and PublishCommandDefinition
✅ Fixed CS9174 compilation error: IfExplicitlyProvided() method was returning [] instead of option (commit 6ed90e0)
✅ Ensured boolean values are lowercase ("true"/"false") for MSBuild compatibility using ternary operator pattern (commit pending)

Original prompt

A lot of customers assume that --self-contained is a boolean and they pass true and false to it but today we ignore that boolean. Rather than remove this flag and break people, let's actually support the boolean for this flag. Please make it so that true sets self-contained as it does today but make --self-contained false disable self-contained.

✨ Let Copilot coding agent set things up for you — coding agent works faster and does higher quality work when set up for your repo.

Co-authored-by: marcpopMSFT <12663534+marcpopMSFT@users.noreply.github.com>

marcpopMSFT · 2026-01-09T00:06:03Z

I tested and it works correctly and the code looks right. There are a surprising number of tests that were dependent on this not working which is confusing.

…oolean

marcpopMSFT · 2026-01-09T00:47:06Z

I tested all four possible options:

nothing specified
--self-contained
--self-contained false
--self-contained true

We will set _CommandLineDefinedSelfContained when false now though that seems correct (and we don't appear to use it anywhere). _SelfContainedWasSpecified will now also be true when setting false.

marcpopMSFT · 2026-01-09T00:52:23Z

note that before, --self-contained false was a weird grey area as it wouldn't set self-contained (so we were actually taking into account the boolean). This is because ForwardIfEnabled would only set self contained if the value were true (or empty). If false, it wouldn't forward the command from what I can tell. That means it's not as bad as I had assumed but it does mean if you have SelfContained specified elsewhere, the CLI false value won't affect it.

marcpopMSFT · 2026-01-26T21:33:54Z

@copilot there are merge conflicts with origin/release/10.0.3xx, can you please merge that in and fix the conflicts?

…upport-self-contained-boolean # Conflicts: # src/Cli/Microsoft.DotNet.Cli.Definitions/Common/CommonOptions.cs

Copilot · 2026-01-26T21:42:07Z

@copilot there are merge conflicts with origin/release/10.0.3xx, can you please merge that in and fix the conflicts?

Merged origin/release/10.0.3xx and resolved the conflict in CommonOptions.cs (commit a8e061b).

marcpopMSFT · 2026-01-26T21:49:19Z

@baronfel review at your leisure. Not as bad as I originally thought but probably still worth taking.

baronfel

@copilot can you apply my feedback please?

baronfel · 2026-01-26T22:08:21Z

src/Cli/Microsoft.DotNet.Cli.Definitions/Common/CommonOptions.cs

+            Arity = ArgumentArity.ZeroOrOne
        }
-        .ForwardIfEnabled([$"--property:SelfContained=true", "--property:_CommandLineDefinedSelfContained=true"]);
+        .ForwardAsMany(o => o.HasValue ? [$"--property:SelfContained={o.Value}", "--property:_CommandLineDefinedSelfContained=true"] : []);


IIRC nullable bool isn't quite the correct thing here - S.CL defaults will always provide a value for the bool, so HasValue will always be true. Here's a quick test bed I wrote:

> dotnet run .\scl.cs Command: foo -o Has option: True Option value: True Value type: explicit Command: foo -o true Has option: True Option value: True Value type: explicit Command: foo -o false Has option: True Option value: False Value type: explicit

Not using the nullable means that the changes to most of the other files don't have to happen.

Co-authored-by: baronfel <573979+baronfel@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-01-26T22:18:23Z

@copilot can you apply my feedback please?

Applied your feedback in commit f1a9e82. Changed from bool? to bool and removed the HasValue check, simplifying the implementation as you suggested.

…oolean

marcpopMSFT · 2026-02-03T00:33:36Z

Retested and I can confirm that we get SelfContained false if not specified (and the other two _ are empty). If I set any self-contained CLI option, the other two _ options are true and SelfContained matches the boolean.

@baronfel one weirdness is that SelfContained will be capitalized with this solution if set. Should we fix that to make sure it's lowercase always?

marcpopMSFT · 2026-02-03T00:35:02Z

fwiw, I also confirmed that --self-contained false will override a SelfContained=true in a project file. That seems like expected behavior for the CLI to override the project file though.

…oolean

marcpopMSFT · 2026-02-03T19:54:04Z

Hmm, tests are failing because SelfContained is set where it wasn't before. I'll have to dig into those tests.

…provided by a user/command

marcpopMSFT · 2026-02-06T00:19:42Z

@copilot
src/Cli/Microsoft.DotNet.Cli.CommandLine/ForwardedOptionExtensions.cs(164,20): error CS9174: (NETCORE_ENGINEERING_TELEMETRY=Build) Cannot initialize type 'Option' with a collection expression because the type is not constructible

Co-authored-by: marcpopMSFT <12663534+marcpopMSFT@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-02-06T00:27:47Z

@copilot
src/Cli/Microsoft.DotNet.Cli.CommandLine/ForwardedOptionExtensions.cs(164,20): error CS9174: (NETCORE_ENGINEERING_TELEMETRY=Build) Cannot initialize type 'Option' with a collection ...

Fixed in commit 6ed90e0. The IfExplicitlyProvided() method was incorrectly returning an empty collection [] instead of returning option. The method signature is Option<TValue> IfExplicitlyProvided(), so it should return the option itself to enable method chaining.

marcpopMSFT · 2026-02-06T22:59:42Z

@copilot Can you ensure that when we set SelfContained, that the boolean value is lowercase as that's what msbuild expects?

Co-authored-by: marcpopMSFT <12663534+marcpopMSFT@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot · 2026-02-06T23:07:49Z

@copilot Can you ensure that when we set SelfContained, that the boolean value is lowercase as that's what msbuild expects?

Fixed in commit 91ddbe4. Changed the implementation to use a ternary operator (o ? "true" : "false") to ensure the boolean value is always lowercase, matching the pattern used in other options like CreateInteractiveMsBuildForwardOption(). Verified that MSBuild now receives --property:SelfContained=true and --property:SelfContained=false with lowercase values.

Initial plan

47f81fb

Copilot AI assigned Copilot and marcpopMSFT Jan 6, 2026

Copilot started work on behalf of marcpopMSFT January 6, 2026 21:10 View session

Support boolean values for --self-contained flag

03292b0

Co-authored-by: marcpopMSFT <12663534+marcpopMSFT@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of marcpopMSFT January 6, 2026 22:14

Fix the logic to only set self contained when specified

ba0135a

marcpopMSFT approved these changes Jan 9, 2026

View reviewed changes

Merge branch 'release/10.0.2xx' into copilot/support-self-contained-b…

1a39d27

…oolean

marcpopMSFT marked this pull request as ready for review January 9, 2026 00:45

marcpopMSFT requested a review from baronfel January 9, 2026 00:45

marcpopMSFT changed the base branch from release/10.0.2xx to release/10.0.3xx January 16, 2026 18:30

Change SelfContainedOption type to nullable boolean

4c64979

mmitche deleted the branch release/10.0.3xx January 17, 2026 00:40

mmitche closed this Jan 17, 2026

marcpopMSFT reopened this Jan 20, 2026

Copilot started work on behalf of marcpopMSFT January 26, 2026 21:34 View session

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/release/10.0.3xx' into copilot/s…

a8e061b

…upport-self-contained-boolean # Conflicts: # src/Cli/Microsoft.DotNet.Cli.Definitions/Common/CommonOptions.cs

Copilot AI requested a review from marcpopMSFT January 26, 2026 21:43

Copilot finished work on behalf of marcpopMSFT January 26, 2026 21:43

marcpopMSFT changed the title ~~[WIP] Support boolean values for --self-contained flag~~ Support boolean values for --self-contained flag Jan 26, 2026

marcpopMSFT approved these changes Jan 26, 2026

View reviewed changes

baronfel requested changes Jan 26, 2026

View reviewed changes

Copilot started work on behalf of baronfel January 26, 2026 22:09 View session

Use bool instead of bool? for SelfContainedOption per feedback

f1a9e82

Co-authored-by: baronfel <573979+baronfel@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of baronfel January 26, 2026 22:19

Copilot AI requested a review from baronfel January 26, 2026 22:19

This was referenced Jan 27, 2026

The Operation will be canceled. The next steps may not contain expected logs. dotnet/dnceng#3008

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[android-arm64] The Operation will be canceled. The next steps may not contain expected logs. dotnet/dnceng#6408

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Merge branch 'release/10.0.3xx' into copilot/support-self-contained-b…

45e7f0a

…oolean

Merge branch 'release/10.0.3xx' into copilot/support-self-contained-b…

00291c8

…oolean

baronfel and others added 2 commits February 5, 2026 14:03

add a way for boolean options to forward only if they are explicitly …

ee707e8

…provided by a user/command

Fix return statement in ForwardedOptionExtensions

a3e34f2

build-analysis bot mentioned this pull request Feb 5, 2026

TemplateEngineToolDiscovery Network Failure: Unable to read data from the transport connection: Connection reset by peer #51154

Open

Copilot started work on behalf of marcpopMSFT February 6, 2026 00:20 View session

Fix CS9174 error: return option instead of empty collection

6ed90e0

Co-authored-by: marcpopMSFT <12663534+marcpopMSFT@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot AI requested a review from marcpopMSFT February 6, 2026 00:28

Copilot finished work on behalf of marcpopMSFT February 6, 2026 00:28

Copilot started work on behalf of marcpopMSFT February 6, 2026 23:00 View session

Ensure SelfContained boolean value is lowercase for MSBuild

91ddbe4

Co-authored-by: marcpopMSFT <12663534+marcpopMSFT@users.noreply.github.com>

Copilot finished work on behalf of marcpopMSFT February 6, 2026 23:08

build-analysis bot mentioned this pull request Feb 7, 2026

arcade/src/Microsoft.DotNet.Arcade.Sdk/src/DownloadFile.cs:line 184 TimeoutException: The operation was canceled. dotnet/dnceng#6074

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Plan: Support boolean values for --self-contained flag

Analysis

Changes Required

Implementation Details

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