I have added a library, ArduinoIoTCloud,  as a shared project as described in
https://www.visualmicro.com/page/User-Guide.aspx?doc=Add-Libraries.html

I have set the option "Auto Pre-Compile" as described in
https://www.visualmicro.com/page/How-to-Automatically-Pre-Compile-Library-Archiv...

However, when I build the project and the library is compiled, the build process does not create the .a file or the library.properties file.   

The build log contains no messages regarding "Auto-precompile."

If you navigate to the Library Folder, and open the library.properties file in notepad, you will see the below entry:
dot_a_linkage=True

Edit the line so "True" is all lowercase:
dot_a_linkage=true

Then try compiling the project again.

If you then compile it a second time the logging should show the expected output.

We have a fix which will be released later today which will resolve the issue for any future projects, and we will update this thread when it is available.