[Question] Microsoft.CodeCoverage expected behavior with MSBuild /p:CreateHardLinksForCopyLocalIfPossible=true

[Cjewett]

I also posted this question in Coverlet (coverlet-coverage/coverlet#1651) because our company currently uses both Coverlet and Microsoft.CodeCoverage. There is a desire to turn on CreateHardLinksForCopyLocalIfPossible to reduce the size of our build output because we're running out of storage. When using Coverlet it hits System.IO.Exception TestProject.dll cannot be accessed because it is being used by another process. That is expected considering how code coverage normally works due to instrumentation, but I'm hoping this case has been handled in the official Microsoft solution. A couple questions:

• Is Microsoft.CodeCoverage expected to work with builds that had hardlinks enabled if the test projects are run in parallel after compilation has completed?
• If it is not expected to work are there workarounds to get it to work?

[jakubch1]

Microsoft.CodeCoverage supports dynamic instrumentation which will work the best in this scenario:
https://github.com/microsoft/codecoverage/blob/main/docs/instrumentation.md#static-and-dynamic-instrumentation
Dynamic instrumentation is not modifying files on disk so parallel run should be possible.

Static instrumentation is enabled by default on non-Windows envs. Add <EnableStaticManagedInstrumentation>True</EnableStaticManagedInstrumentation> to your config to disable it.

[Cjewett]

Thanks for the quick reply @jakubch1 !