Some backstory: we have a single solution in a single repo that allows us to publish multiple packages at a time. This is to maintain rapid development instead of having the developer bounce around many repos, sapping productivity.
Each of the projects represents a NuGet package (.NET Core based), and we use the modern .csproj way of defining the packages. Dependent NuGet packages do not reference dependencies via <PackageReference> in the .csproj; instead they reference via the usual <ProjectReference>.
Let's say I have package A that depends on B via a project reference, and the stated <PackageVersion> of B is 2.0. When the package for A is published, the NuGet feed will state that A depends on version >= 2.0.
Where/how did this NuGet dependency get created during the pack/publish process when the original Adid not have a package reference at all to B? Our pipelines allow us to build individual packages or all of them at once. Does the project reference imply a package dependency? Is that true?