[wasm][coreCLR] Out-of-repo relink cannot find crossgen2; acquire it through the SDK

[radekdoulik]

Problem

Out of the repo, a wasm CoreCLR native relink cannot find crossgen2.

#131877 arranged for the wasm-tools workload to carry the crossgen2 pack, but made that change in src/mono/nuget/…Mono.Toolchain.Current.Manifest/, which per @akoeplinger is only used for testing. The manifest that ships is hand-authored in dotnet/sdk and never got the entry, so $(Crossgen2ToolPath) is never set and the relink fails with its own "install the wasm-tools workload" error — which installing the workload does not fix.

In-repo builds are unaffected: they resolve crossgen2 from $(Crossgen2InBuildDir), earlier in the same fallback chain.

Fix

dotnet/sdk#56119 added RequiresCrossgen2Pack, letting a build acquire the pack without PublishReadyToRun. Adopting it closes the gap with no manifest change in either repo.

1. Set RequiresCrossgen2Pack in Microsoft.NET.Sdk.WebAssembly.Browser.CoreCLR.targets. It must be set during evaluation — ProcessFrameworkReferences runs BeforeTargets="…CollectPackageDownloads", so $(WasmBuildNative) cannot be the gate.

2. Consume @(Crossgen2Tool) in BrowserWasmApp.CoreCLR.targets and WasiApp.CoreCLR.targets, as the last entry in the fallback chain.

3. Remove the workload plumbing: the Microsoft.NETCore.App.Crossgen2.${NetVersion} entries in runtime's WorkloadManifest.json.in, the matching import in WorkloadManifest.targets.in, src/installer/pkg/sfx/Microsoft.NETCore.App/Crossgen2/Sdk.props, and the FilesToPackage line for it in Microsoft.NETCore.App.Crossgen2.props. Nothing to remove in dotnet/sdk. Also recheck whether eng/Subsets.props:772 (BuildCrossgen2HostPackForWorkloadTesting) is still needed.

4. wasi, if wanted: wasi-experimental extends microsoft-net-runtime-mono-tooling, not wasm-tools, so it never got the pack and out-of-repo wasi relink still needs $(PortableCallHelpersGeneratorPath) set by hand.

Sequencing

This is the order anticipated when the workload route went in — "I know this means you'd need to get a new SDK first so we might have to go with this approach first".

Steps 1–2 can land now: they are additive, and on an SDK without #56119 the workload route still wins. Step 3 waits for an SDK carrying #56119 to flow in (global.json currently pins 11.0.100-rc.1.26420.103); removing the entries earlier would break the out-of-repo Wasm.Build.Tests legs.

Note that while both routes exist the workload one wins, so the SDK route stays untested until step 3.

Notes on step 2

ResolveReadyToRunCompilers errors rather than reporting nothing when no pack was resolved, and derives the path as <pack>/tools/crossgen2, which the flat $(Crossgen2InBuildDir) layout does not match — so the call has to be skipped when anything else already supplies a path. It also needs its own target, because CallTarget's item output is not visible to the calling target; and the guard cannot be hoisted to evaluation, because $(Crossgen2InBuildDir) comes from eng/liveBuilds.targets, imported after these files (same hazard as src/tests/Common/CLRTest.WasmCorerun.targets:109).

<Target Name="_CoreCLRResolvePortableCallHelpersGenerator"
        BeforeTargets="_CoreCLRGenerateManagedToNative"
        DependsOnTargets="ResolveFrameworkReferences">
  <CallTarget Targets="ResolveReadyToRunCompilers"
              Condition="'$(PortableCallHelpersGeneratorPath)' == '' and '$(Crossgen2InBuildDir)' == '' and '$(Crossgen2ToolPath)' == ''" />
</Target>

Alternative

Mirroring the #131877 manifest change into dotnet/sdk would also close the gap without waiting for a flow, but keeps the pack in the workload (~12.5 MB for everyone who installs wasm-tools) and leaves the entry to be maintained in two repos and removed from both later.

Note

This issue was drafted with GitHub Copilot.

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