Schemawise

EF Core superpowers for VS Code. Navigate. Compare. Migrate safely.

Schemawise shows you what EF Core really does with your model, compares it with your real database, and tells you what a migration can break before you apply it.

100% local. No source code, connection string, schema or data ever leaves your machine. No account, no telemetry.

Features

Explore the EF Core model

Schemawise: Analyze Workspace finds your .NET projects, their EF Core version, provider and DbContexts. Expand a DbContext in the EF Model view to see the effective model, as EF Core builds it (conventions, fluent configuration and attributes included):

• entities → tables (and schemas), properties → columns and store types;
• keys, foreign keys, indexes, owned and complex types, shadow properties;
• click an entity or a property to jump to its source.

The model comes from EF Core itself, by loading your compiled project like dotnet ef does. Schemawise does not guess by parsing C#.

Detect schema drift

Add a SQL Server or PostgreSQL connection in the Databases view, then run Compare Model with Database (or use the button on a DbContext). The Schema Drift view lists what differs, grouped by severity, each with an explanation:

missing or extra tables and columns · store types · max length · precision and scale · nullability · primary keys · indexes.

Schemawise only reads schema metadata (never table data) and never changes the database.

Understand migration risks

Click a migration in the EF Model view, or run Schemawise: Inspect Migration. The Migration Risks view lists every operation of the migration with its risk level, what can go wrong and how to avoid it:

Choose a database marked Production as the target and Schemawise adds a warning banner. Schemawise never runs migrations.

Requirements

• The .NET 8 runtime (or later) to run Schemawise.
• The .NET SDK your projects need, to build and analyse them.
• Tested with EF Core 8 and 9; database features support SQL Server and PostgreSQL.

Schemawise builds your projects to read their model, which runs code from the workspace. It is therefore disabled in untrusted workspaces (Restricted Mode).

Commands

Settings

Privacy and security

• Connection strings are stored in VS Code Secret Storage and only passed to the local Schemawise process; they are redacted from every log and error message.
• Database access is read-only metadata (catalog views); Schemawise issues no INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE or DDL.
• Schemawise itself makes no network calls other than to the databases you configure. (The dotnet build it runs may restore NuGet packages, exactly as when you build yourself.)

Reporting a problem

Run Schemawise: Copy Diagnostics and paste the report into your issue, together with what you expected. The report contains versions, statuses and diagnostic codes only.

Preview: feedback on false positives (drift or migration risks reported wrongly) is the most useful thing you can send.

License

Schemawise is proprietary software, free to use during the preview. See LICENSE.txt and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt.