Avalonia for Visual Studio Code from LeXtudio Inc.

Avalonia is a cross-platform XAML-based UI framework providing a flexible styling system and supporting a wide range of Operating Systems such as Windows via .NET Framework and .NET Core, Linux via Xorg and macOS.

The Avalonia for Visual Studio Code Extension contains support for Avalonia XAML support like autocomplete, previewer, etc.

Fork & Maintenance Notice

This repository is a fork maintained by LeXtudio Inc. Our goal is to actively maintain and enhance the Avalonia developer experience in Visual Studio Code by:

• Keeping the extension up to date with new Avalonia releases
• Improving performance, reliability, and cross‑platform behavior
• Adding new productivity features (outline view, smarter completion, diagnostics, etc.)
• Responding to community feedback and accelerating fixes

Issues and feature requests are welcome—your input helps shape the roadmap.

Follow the contribution guide if you want to help us build the extension

Getting Started

Recommended Companion Extension

For consistent formatting of your AXAML files, we recommend optionally installing the community XAML Styler extension (dabbinavo.xamlstyler). The first time you use this extension you'll receive a prompt; you can also find it manually in the Extensions view by searching for "XAML Styler". This extension is optional—the Avalonia features work without it.

Create a new Avalonia project

You can create a new Avalonia project directly from the Visual Studio Code

Additionally, you can create a project from the command line too, with the command:

dotnet new avalonia.app -o MyApp

This will create a new folder called MyApp with your application files. You can install Avalonia project templates with following command, if you do not have them installed already:

dotnet new install Avalonia.Templates

Finally open the MyApp folder in the VS Code, open any axaml file to activate the extension and code completion.

NOTE: You must build the project to enable code completion for now.

Enable Previewer

After you load the project in the VS Code, you can click on Show Preview button on the editor toolbar (1)

The previewer requires that your project is built, and has required metadata. When you open the project for the first time, or clean the project. Click on Generate Assets button (2), and wait for a couple of seconds to preview the XAML file.

The previewer will refresh when you switch between multiple xaml files, unlike Visual Studio for Windows or Rider, VS Code will reuse the single preview window.

XAML Code completion

The Avalonia XAML in the VS Code is powered by the same code completion engine available for Visual Studio on Windows.

Rich syntax highlighter and contextual code complete will make it lot easier to read and write XAML files

Useful Commands

• Avalonia: Toggle verbose Avalonia logs (avalonia.toggleVerboseLogs)
• Avalonia: Show preview (avalonia.showPreviewToSide)
• Avalonia: Create previewer assets (avalonia.createPreviewerAssets)
• Avalonia: Create a new Avalonia Project (avalonia.newProject)
• Avalonia: Show solution discovery info (avalonia.showSolutionDiscoveryInfo)
• Avalonia: Open solution model JSON (avalonia.openSolutionModelJson)

Settings Highlights

• avalonia.completion.buildConfigurationPreference – Preferred build configuration for completion (Debug / Release / Auto)
• avalonia.trace.verbose – Enable verbose Avalonia server side logs (assembly scanning, metadata fallback)
• avalonia.trace.server – LSP protocol tracing (messages / verbose)
• avalonia.misc.suppressXamlStylerRecommendation – Suppress prompt recommending XAML Styler extension
• avalonia.previewer.emitBinlog – Emit MSBuild binary log when building previewer assets
• avalonia.previewer.runDotnetInfo – Run 'dotnet --info' before building previewer assets

Copyright (c) 2023 AvaloniaUI
Copyright (c) 2025 LeXtudio Inc.