Curious, is there some override built into Umbraco with publishing to a folder from Visual Studio? Cause I've tried everything I can think of and cannot get the simplest case to work. No matter what I do, everything always publishes... Or is there a more 'Umbraco' way to do it I dunno about? :o

Ultimately, I'm trying to skip publishing the custom backoffice icons folder (cause it's huge and making publish take 5 mins each time...) but I can't even get a simple test (single file) to work either. I tested with trying to target an exact file at App_Plugins/abtest.txt too and still nada.

I have tried:

ASP.NET Core 8.0 documentation examples, including variations of single and double /'s or \'s with and without wildcards on both the folder & file levels; for both the Content Update and MSDeploySkipRules.

    <ItemGroup>
        <MsDeploySkipRules Include="CustomSkipFolder">
            <ObjectName>dirPath</ObjectName>
            <AbsolutePath>App_Plugins\\Custom\\backoffice\\icons</AbsolutePath>
        </MsDeploySkipRules>

        * the above but ending with \\
        * the above 2 but with single backslashes instead 
        * the above 3 but ending with **
        * the above 4 but ending with \*
        * the above 5 but with forward slashes instead
        * the above 6 but ending at the 'backoffice' folder instead

       ** I also tried with filePath instead of dirPath as per below:
       <MsDeploySkipRules Include="SkipCustomIcons">
           <ObjectName>filePath</ObjectName>
           <AbsolutePath>App_Plugins\\Custom\\backoffice\\icons\\**\\*.svg</AbsolutePath>
        </MsDeploySkipRules>

        * Repeat all the previous iterations on / or \ or *

        * Also tried...
        <Content Update="App_Plugins\Custom\backoffice\**\*" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
        <Content Update="App_Plugins/Custom/backoffice/**/*" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
        <Content Update="App_Plugins\Custom\backoffice\icons\*.svg" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
        <Content Update="App_Plugins/Custom/backoffice/icons/*.svg" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
    </ItemGroup>

SDK Issue examples brought up from a couple years ago. Though from my understanding this is obsolete now? Tried it anyways just in case xP

<ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>App_Plugins\abtest.txt</ExcludeFilesFromDeployment>
<ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>App_Plugins\Custom\backoffice\icons</ExcludeFoldersFromDeployment>

Nothing has worked. Everything is always published regardless of how or what I put into the publish profile. But I know the publish profile is otherwise working since all the Property Group bits (aside from the Excludes above) are working.

Any ideas are appreciated <3 I've gone bug-eyed trying to find what I'm missing.

*Also just to confirm: yes I have been cleaning & closing VS each time just to be sure it's fresh each time I attempted :3