What is an artifact in the context of a visual studio solution?

Question

Hopefully an easy question.

What is an artifact in the context of a visual studio solution? What do they do? What are some common deployment patterns?

Answer 1

From the docs:

Build artifacts are files produced by a build and stored on the server. Typically these include distribution packages, WAR files, reports, log files, etc. When creating a build configuration you specify artifacts of your build at the General Settings page

And now to specifically answer your question.

What is an artifact in the context of a visual studio solution?

Your solution is compiled by TeamCity using a Build Step. Artifacts are the files you choose to 'keep' after compiling your Visual Studio sln file.

For example:

This assumes you have a sln that compiles 2 projects, ConsoleApplication and WebApi - this example says keep all the output of ConsoleApplication and all the dll's of WebApi. These artifacts are held by TeamCity and can be downloaded as part of a deployment process.