You are mixing a binding tool with a reference implementation.
Web Essentials 2013 builds nodes of compressed (reduced) JavaScript , CSS , LESS , SASS, and image files. Web Essentials should create a mini-package, regardless of whether you are in debug mode.
You are looking for a way to selectively reference minfied files in Release mode and originals in Debugging . This may mean more likely Razor coding to check the release version and render links.
The best solution is to use Merge and minimize ASP.NET .
It is easy to debug your JavaScript in the development environment (where the compilation element in the Web.config file is set to debug = "true"), because the JavaScript files are not linked or not reduced when debug = "true"
A minified bundle will exist if debug="true" in your Web.config. But at runtime, the structure will refer to the original files, not the miniature ones. Now your Web.config is responsible for indicating which version of your assets belong.
Web Essential Packages are passive assets. There is no functionality in Web Essentials to distinguish between Release and Debug mode, because it is a run-time action.
Note. Web Essentials 2015.0 removed binding and minimization.
Attention!
Web Essentials 2015 no longer contains functions for combining and minimizing JS, CSS, and HTML files, as well as compiling LESS, Scss, and CoffeeScript. These features have been ported to their own separate extensions, which greatly enhance the features.
A common practice is to use the ASP.NET Bundler . This is another reason to avoid joining Web Essentials.