D365 Developer Tools (Unofficial) for Visual Studio

A Visual Studio extension for C# development against Dynamics 365 / Dataverse. Browse entities and attributes, and generate early-bound C# classes and option-set enums — without leaving the editor.

This is a Visual Studio port of the D365 Developer Tools (Unofficial) VS Code extension, adapted for C#/early-bound Dataverse development instead of TypeScript.

Table of Contents

• Features
  • Entity Explorer
  • Plugin Explorer
  • Publish to Dataverse
  • Add Step
  • C# Class Generation
  • Enum Generation
  • IntelliSense Integration
  • Connection Management
  • Claude / AI Integration (MCP Server)
• Extensions Menu
• Requirements

Features

Entity Explorer

A tool window (Tools → D365 Developer Tools → D365: Show Entity Explorer) that connects to your Dataverse environment and lets you browse its metadata.

• Lists all entities, searchable by name
• Filter the list down to a specific solution
• Expand any entity to see its attributes, types, and whether each field is the primary ID or primary name
• Right-click an entity to generate an early-bound C# class
• Right-click a Picklist, State, or Status field to generate a standalone enum

Plugin Explorer

A tool window (Tools → D365 Developer Tools → D365: Show Plugin Explorer) for browsing registered plugin assemblies, similar to the Plugin Registration Tool.

• Lists all plugin assemblies, searchable by name, with their version, isolation mode, and — for assemblies deployed as part of a NuGet-style plugin package — the package name
• Filter the list down to a specific solution
• Expand an assembly to see its plugin types (and whether each is a workflow activity)
• Expand a plugin type to see its registered steps — message, target entity, stage, and execution mode, with disabled steps shown dimmed
• Expand a step to see its registered pre-/post-images
• Publish project to Dataverse... — the toolbar button next to the search box builds a project from the open solution and publishes it, the same as right-clicking it in Solution Explorer (see Publish to Dataverse); the tree refreshes afterward
• Right-click a plugin type → Add Step... to register a new step for it (see Add Step)
• Right-click a step → Edit Step... to change its message, target entity, stage, execution mode, execution order, filtering attributes, or solution — the same dialog as Add Step, pre-filled with the step's current values

Publish to Dataverse

Right-click a project in Solution Explorer and choose D365: Publish to Dataverse... to build and deploy it without leaving Visual Studio.

1. Builds the project (Release configuration).
2. Looks for an existing Plugin Assembly or Plugin Package in the connected environment with the same name as the built assembly.

   • Found — uploads the new build to it. If it's a traditional plugin assembly, the build is also scanned for IPlugin implementations and any newly added ones are registered as Plugin Types (existing ones are left alone, so registered steps are never disturbed).

   • Not found (first publish) — the first time you publish a given project, you'll be asked which deployment model to use:

     • Traditional Plugin Assembly — uploads the .dll to a Plugin Assembly record, then registers a Plugin Type for each IPlugin implementation it finds.
     • NuGet-style Plugin Package — uploads to a Plugin Package record; Dataverse derives the plugin types from the package itself.

     Your choice is remembered for that project, and you'll then be asked whether to add the new record to a solution (picked from a list of your Dataverse solutions).

Add Step

Right-click a .cs file that contains a class implementing IPlugin and choose D365: Add Step... to register a new step for it without leaving Visual Studio.

• Looks up the plugin type in the connected environment by its fully-qualified name — the project needs to have been published first, since a step can't be registered against a type Dataverse doesn't know about yet. If the file has more than one IPlugin class, or the type name matches more than one published assembly, you'll be asked which one to use.
• Opens a dialog to set the message, target entity (only entities valid for the chosen message are offered), stage, execution mode, execution order, and — for Update steps — the filtering attributes.
• Solution defaults to the one solution the plugin's assembly belongs to, if it's only in one; otherwise you can pick one from the list, or leave it unset.

C# Class Generation

Right-click an entity in the Entity Explorer to generate an early-bound class for it, CrmSvcUtil-style. You'll be prompted to select which fields to include, and the result opens directly in the editor as an unsaved C# document.

• Fields are typed appropriately (string, int?, decimal?, bool?, DateTime?, Guid?, Money)
• Lookup, Customer, and Owner fields use EntityReference
• Picklist, State, and Status fields automatically have their option values fetched and are typed with a matching enum, generated alongside the class
• The class includes [EntityLogicalName] / [AttributeLogicalName] attributes and an Id override wired to the primary key, so it plugs straight into IOrganizationService code

Example output:

public enum LeadStatusCode
{
    New = 1,
    Contacted = 2,
    Qualified = 3,
}

[EntityLogicalName(EntityLogicalName)]
public class Lead : Entity
{
    public const string EntityLogicalName = "lead";
    public const string PrimaryIdAttribute = "leadid";

    public Lead() : base(EntityLogicalName) { }

    public override Guid Id
    {
        get => base.Id;
        set { base.Id = value; SetAttributeValue(PrimaryIdAttribute, value); }
    }

    /// <summary>Primary ID</summary>
    [AttributeLogicalName("leadid")]
    public Guid? LeadId
    {
        get => GetAttributeValue<Guid?>("leadid");
        set => SetAttributeValue("leadid", value);
    }

    [AttributeLogicalName("statuscode")]
    public LeadStatusCode? StatusCode
    {
        get
        {
            var v = GetAttributeValue<OptionSetValue>("statuscode");
            return v == null ? (LeadStatusCode?)null : (LeadStatusCode)v.Value;
        }
        set => SetAttributeValue("statuscode", value.HasValue ? new OptionSetValue((int)value.Value) : null);
    }
}

Generated classes reference Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk types (Entity, EntityReference, OptionSetValue, Money) by name only. Add a reference to Microsoft.CrmSdk.CoreAssemblies (or your own SDK assemblies) in the project you paste the generated code into.

Enum Generation

Right-click any Picklist, State, or Status attribute in the Entity Explorer and choose Generate Enum to fetch its option values from Dataverse and open a ready-to-use enum.

IntelliSense Integration

Start typing d365 anywhere in a .cs file and two items appear in the completion list:

• D365: Generate interface… — prompts for an entity, then inserts a class with all fields
• D365: Generate interface (select fields…) — prompts for an entity, then lets you pick which fields to include

Accepting either clears the typed text and inserts the generated class (and any option-set enums) right at the cursor.

Connection Management

• Connect to Environment… — prompts for an environment URL and authentication method, then validates connectivity via WhoAmI
• Disconnect / Switch Account… — from the same menu
• Recent Environments — the last five environments you've connected to, for one-click reconnect
• Per-solution — the connection is remembered against the currently open solution and restored automatically the next time you open it

Authentication options:

Claude / AI Integration (MCP Server)

The extension ships an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server so Claude can query your live Dataverse schema while helping you write C# code. When the server is running, Claude can look up entity shapes, field types, and option set values in real time — no copy-pasting schema details into the chat.

Available tools

Setup

No credentials needed — the MCP server uses your existing Visual Studio session. Configuration is opt-in per solution.

1. Connect via Tools → D365 Developer Tools → D365: Connect / Manage Connection…
2. Run D365: Configure MCP Server for this Solution from the same Tools menu. This writes (or merges into) .mcp.json next to your .sln file, pointing Claude Code at the MCP server bundled with the extension. A dialog confirms when this happens.
3. Restart Claude Code so it picks up the new .mcp.json.
4. Run /mcp in Claude Code to confirm the d365 server is listed as connected.

That's it. The extension starts a local token-vending bridge (%LocalAppData%\D365DeveloperTools\mcp-bridge.json) whenever you're connected; the MCP server reads from it so Claude always has a fresh token without storing any credentials.

If the d365 server shows as disconnected in /mcp, make sure D365 Developer Tools is connected in Visual Studio first.

Example usage

Once connected, Claude can answer questions like:

"Generate a C# class for the lead entity, only including the name, status, owner, and created date fields."

Claude will call get_entity_attributes and generate_class against your live environment and return ready-to-use code.

Extensions Menu

Everything lives under Tools → D365 Developer Tools:

Requirements

• Visual Studio 2022 17.9 or later, or a Visual Studio 2026 preview build with the Visual Studio extension development workload
• A Dataverse / Dynamics 365 environment
• For client credentials auth: an Azure AD app registration with a client secret and appropriate Dataverse permissions
• .NET 8 runtime (required for the bundled MCP server)