What is Microsoft.AspNetCore.App runtime and why is necessary?

[montyclt]

When I run dotnet --list-runtimes I get two runtimes installed.

Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 5.0.10 [/usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]  <-- Why is needed?
Microsoft.NETCore.App 5.0.10 [/usr/local/share/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.NETCore.App]

As I know, an ASP.NET Core application is a standard console application that set up a HTTP Server (I suppose that it is achieved using TCP sockets listening for HTTP messages, but I don't know).

If ASP.NET Core application is a console application, why exists a special runtime for ASP.NET Applications? Can I run ASP.NET applications without installing it?

[davidfowl]

It the a set of assemblies that version together that make up asp.net. That's all a shared framework is. It also ships in the box with .net so you always have it. Can you build a console app that uses asp.net? Yes, and you do it by adding a framework reference to Microsoft.AspNetCore.App

[montyclt]

Thanks David, I have one more related question. This means if I build an ASP.NET Core application, but I don't include the ASP.NET Core framework assemblies, the application still running because it use the assemblies included in the runtime?

[davidfowl]

You can't build an ASP.NET Core application without including the framework reference.

[montyclt]

Sorry misunderstood, I'm not asking about SDK reference in the csproj file, I'm asking about the generated assemblies in project output (dll files).

Are this files ignored when publishing as framework-dependant because it uses the ASP.NET core assemblies of the runtime?

[davidfowl]

Yes. When you add the Framework reference, that gets burned into the runtime manifest (runtimeconfig.json) and those files don't get deployed with the application.

[montyclt]

Ok David, thank you!