aspnetcore/docs/Trimming.md

Guide to trimming ASP.NET Core

This guide discusses the steps required to enable, annotate, and verify trimming in ASP.NET Core assemblies. An assembly that supports trimming knows all the types and members it needs at runtime. Unused code is removed when an app is published, reducing app size. Trimming is also a precursor to supporting AOT, which requires knowledge of the APIs used by an app on build.

Trim self-contained deployments and executables has general documentation for trimming. It includes:

• How to output trim warnings. Typically done by publishing an app.
• How to react to trim warnings. Attributes can be placed on APIs to provide type info, suppress warnings, or verify that an API is incompatible with trimming.
• How to trim libraries.

Assembly trimming order

Trim assemblies from the bottom up. Order is important because annotating an assembly impacts its dependents and their annotations. Annotating from the bottom up reduces churn.

For example, Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http depends on Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Abstractions so Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http.Abstractions should be annotated first.

Trim an ASP.NET Core assembly

The first step to trimming an ASP.NET Core assembly is adding it to LinkabilityChecker. LinkabilityChecker is a tool in the ASP.NET Core repo that runs ILLink on its referenced assemblies and outputs trim warnings.

1. Update the project file to enable trimming by adding <IsTrimmable>true</IsTrimmable>. This property configures the build to add metadata to the assembly to indicate it supports trimming. It also enables trimming analysis on the project.
2. Run eng/scripts/GenerateProjectList.ps1 to update the list of projects that are known to be trimmable. The script adds the project to the list of known trimmable projects at eng/TrimmableProjects.props.
3. Open src/Tools/Tools.slnf
4. Add the project to Tools.slnf:
   1. Right-click LinkabilityCheck and select Load Direct Dependencies.
   2. Update the solution filter.
5. Build LinkabilityChecker.

LinkabilityChecker is required to get a complete list of trim warnings because there isn't enough type information when building an assembly on its own. It's possible to introduce new trim warnings during typical dev work after annotating an assembly for trimming. LinkabilityChecker automatically runs on the build server and catches new warnings.

Fix trim warnings

Introduction to trim warnings and Prepare .NET libraries for trimming discuss how to fix trim warnings. There is also a complete list of all the trim warnings with some more detail.

Updating the baselines

If a suppressed warning has been resolved, or if new trimmer warnings are to be baselined, run the following command:

dotnet build /p:GenerateLinkerWarningSuppressions=true

This should update the WarningSuppressions.xml files associated with projects.

⚠️ Note that the generated file sometimes messes up formatting for some compiler generated nested types and you may need to manually touch up these files on regenerating. The generated file uses braces {...} instead of angle brackets <...>:

- LegacyRouteTableFactory.<>c.{Create}b__2_1(System.Reflection.Assembly)
+ LegacyRouteTableFactory.<>c.<Create>b__2_1(System.Reflection.Assembly)