Please move ref assets to obj directory

[richlander]

I just noticed the ref directory in any/all combination of build / publish and release / debug` output. It shouldn't be there. Developers are deploying this asset into production. That's undesirable. Certainly, if there is a scenario for it being deployed with the app, it should be opt-in.

My experience, after dotnet new console:

root@d17c4ab3cf2c:/app# ls
Program.cs  app.csproj	bin  obj
root@d17c4ab3cf2c:/app# rm -r bin obj
root@d17c4ab3cf2c:/app# dotnet publish -c release
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 17.0.0-preview-21302-02+018bed83d for .NET
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

  Determining projects to restore...
  Restored /app/app.csproj (in 37 ms).
  You are using a preview version of .NET. See: https://aka.ms/dotnet-core-preview
  app -> /app/bin/release/net6.0/app.dll
  app -> /app/bin/release/net6.0/publish/
root@d17c4ab3cf2c:/app# find . | grep ref
./bin/release/net6.0/ref
./bin/release/net6.0/ref/app.dll
./obj/release/net6.0/ref
./obj/release/net6.0/ref/app.dll

[dotnet-issue-labeler]

I couldn't figure out the best area label to add to this issue. If you have write-permissions please help me learn by adding exactly one area label.

[agocke]

@jaredpar Since there may be a situation where you want to publish ref assemblies (but probably not by default)

[marcpopMSFT]

We're tracking the issue here: dotnet/msbuild#6543 and the PR is out dotnet/msbuild#6560 with the customer able to configure where they want it with TargetRefPath. Should be in for VS 17.0 preview 3.