MSDeploy, MSBuild and environment specific config files

MSBuild's property switch (/p:) allows you to override project-level properties. Using /p, you can specify which configuration you wish to build against - therefore if you have your environment specific config files transforming correctly (more details here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/webdevtools/archive/2009/05/04/web-deployment-web-config-transformation.aspx) – you can automate building environment specific deployment packages using MSBuild by using the target switch (/t:) and specifying Package - which results in MSDeploy being the deployment mechanism used.

So an example of this: MSBuild "[project name].csproj" /T:Package /P:Configuration=[environment configuration name i.e. Staging];PackageLocation="[zip file name & path]"

So the model would be - create a config file per (configuration) environment, and create a deployment package per (configuration) environment using the above command line. Therefore you have a deployment package per environment ready to go without have to make any environment specific changes to the config files. Nice and clean, plus with the added bonus that the package generated contains a deploy.cmd file which encapsulates MSDeploy to roll out the package.

More useful info on MSBuild and packaging: http://vishaljoshi.blogspot.com/2009/02/web-packaging-creating-web-packages.html