Azure DevOps Build Failed for Project without Solution File

Our company has been using Azure DevOps as a source control server. Only lately, I have been expanding our usage to take advantage of its CI/CD offerings. It went smoothly until I bumped into a project that has no solution file. 

Problem

The project without solution file failed the Visual Studio Build task even when it has the same settings as other projects with solution file. 

I started by verifying settings from the Solution field. It does says that it can use MSBuild project. Since I was using VB.NET, I point it to .vbproj file.

Next is the Platform field, which according to the info bubble, I can specify "any cpu".

Last is the Configuration field. Since I want a Release build, I can specify "release" according to the info bubble.

The same values, with the exception of the Solution field, work well if I point the task to a solution file but break when I point it to a project file. Part of the error message is:

Please check to make sure that you have specified a valid combination of Configuration and Platform for this project. Configuration='release' Platform='any cpu'. You may be seeing this message because you are trying to build a project without a solution file, and have specified a non-default Configuration or Platform that doesn't exist for this project.

The error message indeed stated that the Configuration and Platform values are invalid. But it builds just fine locally without a solution file. Granted, Visual Studio will create a temporary solution file when opening a project file. 

Solution

Since it built fine locally, I decided to check inside the project file to find the values used.

The project file does use "Release" instead of "release" and "AnyCPU" instead of "any cpu". So, I gave it a try and the build was successful. 

Opening the solution file reveals the use of "Release" and "Any CPU", so the values might be case insensitive, but I didn't give it a try.

And my solution is:

• If pointing to solution file, use "release" as Configuration and "any cpu" as Platform
• If pointing to project file, use "Release" as Configuration and "AnyCPU" as Platform