SharpKit

A VS Code extension that makes day-to-day .NET development feel closer to JetBrains Rider — without leaving VS Code.

It focuses on the parts of the workflow where VS Code has historically been weakest for .NET developers: launching projects in one click, seeing errors grouped by project, running EF Core migrations from a UI, and a few other niceties (watch mode, attach to process, test runner, launchSettings.json editor, pre-launch hooks).

It does not reimplement IntelliSense, refactorings, or navigation — those are handled by C# Dev Kit (Microsoft) and ReSharper for VS Code (JetBrains). SharpKit sits next to them and owns the project / run / debug / tooling experience.

What you get

Three dedicated views appear in the activity bar under a rocket icon:

Launchable Projects

A Solution → Project tree of your workspace. Every .sln / .slnx is listed, each expands to show all the projects it contains. Launchable projects (executables, web APIs, workers, Blazor, Razor) get inline buttons; libraries are shown so you have the full picture but aren't clickable for run.

Inline actions adapt to the project's current state:

Behind the scenes:

• Run → dotnet run --project … via the VS Code tasks API (so you get problem matchers and cancellation for free).
• Debug → synthesizes a coreclr debug configuration in memory and hands it to vscode.debug.startDebugging. Your launch.json is never touched.
• Watch → dotnet watch run … for hot-reload web/worker loops.
• Pause / Continue / Stop → the built-in VS Code debug commands, scoped to the project's session.
• Test projects (detected via Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk, xUnit, NUnit, MSTest) get Run Tests and Debug Tests instead. Debug Tests auto-attaches the debugger as soon as the VSTest host prints its PID.

Right-click a solution or project node for Build / Rebuild / Clean / Restore, and right-click a project for Edit launchSettings.json (opens a webview form over the JSON — per-profile tabs, env variable grid, save/revert).

The view title has two extra buttons: Refresh and Attach to .NET process (opens a quick-pick of running dotnet processes and attaches the debugger).

Problems by Project

A second tree that takes all diagnostics from the language server and regroups them Project → File → Diagnostic, with per-project error and warning counts. Clicking a diagnostic jumps straight to the line. Filterable via sharpkit.includeWarnings.

SharpKit does not produce diagnostics — it consumes whatever C# Dev Kit or the Roslyn LSP emits. Same source of truth as VS Code's native Problems panel, just reorganized so "which project is red?" is one glance away.

EF Core Migrations

A Rider-style tool window for Entity Framework Core projects:

• Each .csproj with an Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore reference appears as a top-level node.
• Under it, each detected DbContext class (including ones inheriting from IdentityDbContext<…> etc.) becomes a child node.
• Inline actions on both DbContext and project nodes:
  • Add Migration — prompts for a name, runs dotnet ef migrations add.
  • Update Database — runs dotnet ef database update, optional target.
  • Remove Last Migration — runs dotnet ef migrations remove with a confirm dialog.

If auto-detection misses a context, the QuickPick includes an "Enter name manually…" option. First time you use it, SharpKit checks for dotnet-ef and offers to install it globally.

Pre-launch hooks

Configure per-project commands that run before Run / Debug / Watch / Tests. Useful for starting a Docker container, running a migration, or warming a cache.

// .vscode/settings.json or user settings
"sharpkit.preLaunch": {
  "src/MyService/MyService.csproj": [
    { "name": "Start Postgres",    "command": "docker compose up -d db" },
    { "name": "Apply migrations",  "command": "dotnet ef database update", "cwd": "src/MyService" }
  ]
}

Keys can be absolute or workspace-relative csproj paths. Hooks run sequentially; if one fails, you get a Continue anyway / Abort prompt.

Settings

Requirements

• VS Code 1.90+
• .NET SDK 6.0 or newer on PATH (tested on 8.0 and 10.0).
• C# Dev Kit or any C# language server (recommended, for the Problems by Project view — SharpKit consumes diagnostics, it does not produce them).
• Optional: dotnet-ef global tool for migrations (SharpKit will prompt to install).
• Optional: dotnet-trace global tool for process listing on Attach (falls back to ps / tasklist if missing).

Installing from source

Until a Marketplace build exists:

git clone <repo-url> sharpkit
cd sharpkit
npm install
npm run build

Then from VS Code:

1. Open the sharpkit folder.
2. Press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host — a second VS Code window with SharpKit loaded.
3. Open a .NET solution in that window.

Known limitations

• Multi-solution workspaces: all solutions are shown side-by-side. If C# Dev Kit pops its own "Workspace or Solution" picker, that's its dialog — dismiss it or set dotnet.defaultSolution. SharpKit operates on every solution in the workspace regardless.
• Debug Tests relies on VSTEST_HOST_DEBUG and parses the PID from stdout. If the test host suppresses that line (rare), the auto-attach won't fire.
• Attach to process attaches without binding to a tree node; state on running projects in the tree is unaffected.
• EF Core migrations assume startup project == migration project. Split-project setups aren't yet surfaced in the UI (use the CLI for now, or open an issue).

Architecture & contributing

The extension is written in TypeScript, bundled with esbuild, no runtime dependencies beyond vscode itself. Source lives under src/ with a clear split: solution/ parses .sln / .csproj, launch/ owns the run/debug/watch/test/attach state machine, migrations/ covers EF Core, ui/ holds the three TreeDataProviders and the launchSettings webview, actions/ has the build commands, services/ centralizes logging and dotnet CLI plumbing.

npm run compile   # tsc --noEmit (type check)
npm run build     # esbuild production bundle
npm run watch     # esbuild watch mode for iterative dev

License

MIT.