Publish Profile App_Data recursive inclusion and deletion behavior

Web Publish File Management

Visual Studio publish profiles provide options to manage the target directory state and specific folder inclusions. When the Delete all existing files prior to publish option is enabled, the MSBuild process is intended to purge the destination before copying new assets.

Concurrent with this, the Include all files in the App_Data folder setting is used to ensure application data is migrated to the remote server. However, there is uncertainty regarding how these two settings interact when the App_Data folder contains a nested directory structure.

It is unclear if the deletion policy recursively removes all sub-directories within App_Data before the inclusion policy triggers a recursive copy of the same nested files. Current logs at the Information level do not explicitly distinguish between files skipped by the include set and files removed by the purge operation.

• Does the Delete all existing files setting recursively purge nested sub-folders within App_Data?
• Is the Include all files in the App_Data folder operation recursive for all nested levels, or limited to the top-level directory?