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docs: clarify dist/browser deployment impact in build migration guide - #70217

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Balaramansethu:docs-clarify-browser-output-path
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docs: clarify dist/browser deployment impact in build migration guide#70217
Balaramansethu wants to merge 1 commit into
angular:mainfrom
Balaramansethu:docs-clarify-browser-output-path

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@Balaramansethu

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PR Checklist

Please check if your PR fulfills the following requirements:

PR Type

What kind of change does this PR introduce?

  • Bugfix
  • Feature
  • Code style update (formatting, local variables)
  • Refactoring (no functional changes, no api changes)
  • Build related changes
  • CI related changes
  • Documentation content changes
  • angular.dev application / infrastructure changes
  • Other... Please describe:

What is the current behavior?

Issue Number: N/A

What is the new behavior?

Does this PR introduce a breaking change?

  • Yes
  • No

Other information

What

Adds a clarifying section to the application builder migration guide
explaining the practical deployment impact of the new dist/<project-name>/browser
output structure, and documents the outputPath.base workaround for
teams that want to keep the previous flat output location.

Why

The current guide only says the new output location "might break some
of the toolchains that rely [on] the previous location," without naming
any specific toolchains or giving concrete remediation steps. In
practice this means CI/CD pipelines that copy from a fixed
dist/<project-name> path (e.g. Azure DevOps release tasks deploying
to IIS) silently deploy an incomplete or empty site, since the actual
build output now lives one level deeper at dist/<project-name>/browser.

There's no build-time warning from the CLI when this happens, so the
first signal most people get is a failed or broken deployment — which
is what happened in my own case. This change makes the guide explicit
about who is affected and what to do about it, rather than leaving it
as a vague caveat.

Changes

  • Added a paragraph naming CI/CD pipelines and deployment tools
    (Azure DevOps, IIS, and similar) as directly affected by the new
    output path, with the required path update.
  • Documented the outputPath.base config option as a way to preserve
    the previous flat dist/<project-name> structure without changing
    deploy tooling.

Closes #57247

@pullapprove
pullapprove Bot requested a review from crisbeto August 15, 2026 21:18
@google-cla

google-cla Bot commented Aug 15, 2026

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Thanks for your pull request! It looks like this may be your first contribution to a Google open source project. Before we can look at your pull request, you'll need to sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA).

View this failed invocation of the CLA check for more information.

For the most up to date status, view the checks section at the bottom of the pull request.

@angular-robot angular-robot Bot added the area: docs Related to the documentation label Aug 15, 2026
@ngbot ngbot Bot added this to the Backlog milestone Aug 15, 2026

@Balaramansethu Balaramansethu left a comment

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Self-review: kept this addition short and scoped to the CI/CD deployment case specifically, since that's the concrete failure mode from issue #57247. Let me know if you'd rather this be folded into the existing paragraph instead of added as a new one, or if the tone/length should be trimmed to match the rest of the guide.

@Balaramansethu Balaramansethu left a comment

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Self-review: the existing paragraph already links out to the output-path config reference, so this addition isn't introducing a new fix - it's making the existing one concrete. I named the specific toolchains (CI/CD pipelines, IIS, Azure DevOps) instead of leaving it as "some toolchains," described the actual failure mode (silent partial/empty deploy rather than a build error), and inlined the outputPath.base snippet so someone mid-incident doesn't have to click through to a separate reference page to find the one relevant key. Let me know if you'd rather this stay as a link-only reference to avoid duplicating the workspace-config docs, or if the inline snippet is a welcome addition.

@JeanMeche
JeanMeche requested review from alan-agius4 and removed request for crisbeto August 15, 2026 22:54
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Application Builder migration docs should mention new folder structure in dist

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