The download of the SDK should be the same as what is published to the CDN.
Test this out locally and was able to use $arcgis.import()
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1,maximum-scale=1,user-scalable=no" />
<title>
Test app
</title>
<link rel="stylesheet"
href="http://localhost/builds/arcgis_js_v50_core_api/javascript/5.0/esri/themes/light/main.css" />
<script type="module" src="http://localhost/builds/arcgis_js_v50_core_api/javascript/5.0/core.js"></script>
<style>
html,
body,
#viewDiv {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
}
</style>
<script type="module">
const [Map, MapView, Search] =
await $arcgis.import([
"@arcgis/core/Map.js",
"@arcgis/core/views/MapView.js",
"@arcgis/core/widgets/Search.js",
]);
const map = new Map({
basemap: "dark-gray-vector",
});
const view = new MapView({
container: "viewDiv",
map: map,
});
const search = new Search({
view: view,
});
view.ui.add(search, "top-right");
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="viewDiv"></div>
</body>
</html>
Only place it's not available is in the npm build.
