SharpDeps — .NET Dependency Map

SharpDeps visualizes the dependencies in a .NET solution as an interactive graph, at both project and namespace granularity, and flags circular dependencies.

The graph opens as a normal editor tab (a webview). Mermaid is bundled into the extension, so rendering works offline with no CDN access.

Features

• Interactive Mermaid dependency graph for a .sln, shown in an editor tab.
• Toggle between project-level and namespace-level views instantly.
• Zoom and pan the graph: on-screen controls, Ctrl/⌘ + wheel, trackpad pinch, and drag to pan.
• Circular dependencies are highlighted in red on the graph.
• Cycles are also reported in the Problems panel:
  • project cycles anchor to the participating .csproj files,
  • namespace cycles anchor to a representative source file for each namespace.
• Export the current graph: copy Mermaid source, save as SVG, save as PNG.
• Run from the Explorer context menu on a .sln file, or from the Command Palette.

Screenshots

Namespace-level view — switch granularity with the Projects / Namespaces toggle to group dependencies by namespace:

Circular dependencies are highlighted in red on the graph and listed in the sidebar; selecting one focuses the participating nodes:

Install

• From the Marketplace: open the Extensions view in VS Code, search for SharpDeps, and install — or visit the Marketplace page.
• From a VSIX: download the latest .vsix from the Releases page, then run Extensions: Install from VSIX… from the Command Palette.

The .NET Install Tool is installed automatically as a dependency. See Requirements for how the dotnet runtime is resolved.

Requirements

SharpDeps runs a small precompiled analyzer that needs the .NET runtime (not the full SDK).

Resolution order for dotnet:

1. The sharpdeps.dotnetPath setting, if set.
2. The .NET Install Tool (dotnet.findPath). This extension is declared as a dependency and is installed automatically.
3. dotnet on your PATH.
4. A private runtime acquired on demand via the .NET Install Tool, using VS Code's standard download/progress UI (no administrator rights required).

If none of these succeed, SharpDeps shows a notification with a Download .NET link and lets you point at a dotnet executable via settings.

Usage

• Right-click a .sln file in the Explorer and choose SharpDeps: Show Dependency Map, or
• Run SharpDeps: Show Dependency Map from the Command Palette.

While the map is open, these palette commands are available:

• SharpDeps: Refresh Dependency Map
• SharpDeps: Copy Mermaid Source
• SharpDeps: Export Graph as SVG
• SharpDeps: Export Graph as PNG

Settings

How it works

flowchart LR
  cmd["Command / right-click"] --> resolve["Resolve target .sln"]
  resolve --> rt["Resolve dotnet (findPath / acquire)"]
  rt --> run["Run analyzer DLL via dotnet"]
  run --> json["Parse JSON report"]
  json --> view["Webview viewer (Mermaid bundled)"]
  json --> diag["Cycle diagnostics (Problems)"]
  view -->|copy / export| ext["Extension host (clipboard / save)"]

The analyzer parses the solution and projects with Roslyn (no MSBuild/SDK dependency) and emits a JSON report. The extension renders it in the webview and publishes any cycles to the Problems panel.

Building from source

Prerequisites: Node.js, and the .NET SDK (only to precompile the analyzer).

npm install
npm run build:analyzer   # publishes analyzer/code-map.cs -> analyzer/bin/code-map.dll
npm run build            # bundles the extension host and the webview client
npm run compile          # type-check (tsc --noEmit)

Run the extension:

• Open this folder in VS Code and press F5 (Run Extension) to launch an Extension Development Host.

Package a VSIX:

npm run package          # runs vscode:prepublish, then vsce package

vscode:prepublish rebuilds the analyzer DLL and produces a production bundle, so the precompiled analyzer and the bundled viewer are included in the VSIX.

License

Licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file in this folder.