.NET Essentials

The Visual Studio / Rider experience you miss, inside VS Code. A complete tooling extension for .NET developers.

Features

C# Reference Docs (Sidebar Panel)

An always-available docs panel in the VS Code activity bar — click the book icon to open it. Built for developers who want fast access to C# language reference and modern .NET patterns without leaving the editor.

Search

• Natural language search in EN and PT-BR — type "retorno com switch", "injeção com chave" or "keyed services" and the right result appears. Every entry has aliases in both languages.
• Results are split into Keywords (language reference) and Modern Patterns (.NET features)

Content — ~40 keywords and ~35 patterns, all with:

• Description in English or Portuguese (toggle EN | PT at the top of the panel)
• Ready-to-use code snippet with syntax highlighting (keyword colors match VS Code Dark+ theme)
• Copy button on every snippet — hover over the code block to reveal it
• Open full docs → link that opens the official Microsoft Docs in the browser

Keywords covered: sealed, abstract, virtual, override, readonly, const, static, partial, async, await, yield, record, params, ref, out, in, is, as, nameof, lock, using, switch, init, required, where, class, struct, interface, enum, delegate, event, try/catch/finally, throw, operator, implicit/explicit, typeof, base, this, checked/unchecked, unsafe

Modern patterns covered: Keyed Services, Primary Constructors, Collection Expressions, Required Members, File-local Types, Raw String Literals, List Patterns, Global Usings, File-scoped Namespaces, Records, Init-only Setters, Top-level Statements, Switch Expressions, Nullable Reference Types, Async Streams, Range and Index, Span<T>, Minimal APIs, Output Caching, Rate Limiting, TimeProvider, Frozen Collections, SearchValues<T>, Generic Math, BackgroundService, IOptions<T>, Channel<T>, HttpClientFactory, Resilience Pipeline (Polly), Health Checks, ConfigureAwait(false), ValueTask vs Task, ProblemDetails, IMemoryCache

Access

• Ctrl+F1 — opens the panel and searches for the selected text in any .cs file
• Ctrl+Shift+F1 — opens a manual search prompt
• Right-click on selected text in a .cs file → Open C# Docs for Selection
• The panel also activates when any .cs file is opened, even without a solution

NuGet Package Manager

• Search packages across multiple sources (nuget.org, Azure Artifacts, GitHub Packages, and any NuGet v3 feed)
• Package detail panel with authors, license, description, tags, and per-framework dependencies
• Outdated package detection with one-click Update All
• Install, remove, and update packages directly from the UI
• Resizable panels

Build, Rebuild & Clean

• Right-click any folder, .csproj, or .sln to Build, Rebuild, or Clean
• Ctrl+Shift+B builds the solution from anywhere
• Output streamed to the .NET Essentials output channel

New Item Templates

• Class, Interface, Enum, Record
• Controller (API), Service, Repository, Middleware
• Namespace inferred automatically from folder path

New Project (dotnet new)

• 12 project templates: Console, Web API, MVC, Class Library, Blazor, Worker, gRPC, xUnit, NUnit, MSTest, Minimal API
• Optionally adds the new project to your solution automatically

Project References

• Add Project Reference — shows only unreferenced projects (multi-select)
• Remove Project Reference — shows existing references for removal

EF Core Migrations

• Add Migration, Update Database, Remove Migration — all from the context menu
• Auto-detects DbContext classes in the project
• Prompts for startup project when no IDesignTimeDbContextFactory is found
• Auto-installs dotnet-ef global tool if not present

User Secrets

• Opens secrets.json directly in the editor
• Initializes UserSecretsId automatically if the project doesn't have one

Launch Profiles

• Run Project reads launchSettings.json and lets you pick the profile (http, https, IIS Express, etc.)

Publish

• Choose configuration (Release/Debug), framework-dependent or self-contained, and runtime identifier

Workspace Configuration (auto-applied)

• File nesting for appsettings.*.json, .csproj and .sln related files
• Hides bin/ and obj/ folders automatically
• Applies Rider-style icon theme for .cs, .csproj, .sln, .cshtml, .json files

New Solution Wizard

Scaffold a complete .NET solution from scratch in one step — right-click any folder and select New .NET Solution.

A 4-step wizard guides you through:

1. Setup — solution name, output folder, .NET version, and API documentation format (Swashbuckle, .NET 9 OpenAPI, or none)
2. Architecture — choose a starting template:
   • Clean Architecture — Domain-centric layers (Api, Application, Domain, Infrastructure, Tests) with correct project references pre-wired
   • Layered (N-Tier) — classic presentation/business/data separation
   • Minimal API — lightweight single-project API
   • Worker Service — background service template
   • Blank Solution — empty solution with no projects
3. Customize — enable/disable projects, add patterns and packages:
   • CQRS — MediatR with ICommand/IQuery interfaces and a Result type (default on for Clean Architecture)
   • Domain Events — AggregateRoot with INotification-based domain events
   • DDD Building Blocks — Entity<TId> and ValueObject base classes
   • MediatR Pipeline Behaviors — ValidationBehavior (FluentValidation) and LoggingBehavior wired into the pipeline
   • Git Submodules — add external repositories as submodules during creation
4. Create — real-time log as projects are created, packages installed, references added, and files scaffolded

Status Bar

• Displays the active solution or project name
• Click to build

Requirements

• .NET SDK installed and available on PATH
• For EF Core commands: dotnet-ef global tool (the extension offers to install it automatically)

Context Menu Reference

Keyboard Shortcuts

Extension Settings

No configuration required. Workspace settings (file nesting, excludes, icon theme) are applied automatically when a .sln or .csproj is detected.