Difference between Drop Folder and Build Agent Working Directory in TFS

I am setting up Team Foundation server for the first time and am attempting to set up automated builds for an ASP.NET MVC project. I have it all working but I don't really understand what is happening.

In my build definition it asks me to set a Drop Folder location. When a build task is added to the queue, once it is successful it not only adds a build folder into the drop folder location, but it also adds a folder called Builds with build files in it based on the Build Agent's working directory.

Additionally, the drop folder builds contain all the debug files such as Web.Debug.config and .pdb files.

What is the purpose of both of these folders? Do I require both to be on my build server? How 开发者_如何学Cdo I use the builds for releases to production?

The drop folder holds the results of the build. It only holds debug files if you built the Debug configuration.

The Builds folder is where the build actually executes. The default directory is set to a location within this folder during the execution of the build. As a result, it contains the intermediate files, among other things - whatever the compilers and such produce, even as input to another tool.

A drop folder allows you to refer to the results of a build in several ways. You may choose to deploy the build results, or you might have another build reference the results of this build.