dotnet

Diagnoses and fixes skills in the dotnet/skills repository that lose to their own baseline, fail to activate, time out, or return "no credible improvement"

Activate this skill when BenchmarkDotNet (BDN) is involved in the task — creating, running, configuring, or reviewing BDN benchmarks. Also activate when microbenchmarking .NET code would be useful and BenchmarkDotNet is the likely tool.

Convert .NET tests from NUnit 3/4 to MSTest v4 while preserving VSTest or MTP. Use for replacing NUnit/NUnit3TestAdapter packages, Test/TestCase/ TestCaseSource/Values attributes, constraint assertions, SetUp/TearDown, OneTimeSetUp, SetUpFixture, FixtureLifeCycle, TestContext, categories, retries, t…

MUST USE for C#/.NET deterministic tests that require the smallest production seam for DateTime/Task.Delay/File/Environment/Guid/Random, static API preservation, nested/parallel overrides, or no real I/O. USE ONLY when the target workspace contains C# source plus a .csproj or .sln.

Generate MSBuild binary logs (binlogs) for build diagnostics and analysis. USE FOR: adding /bl:{} to any dotnet build, test, pack, publish, or restore command to capture a full build execution trace, prerequisite for binlog-failure-analysis and build-perf-diagnostics skills, enabling post-build inve…

Reference-only filter syntax for VSTest and MTP with MSTest, NUnit, xUnit v3, and TUnit. Load only after the platform/framework is known and a consumer needs to create or translate a filter. Do not load for unfiltered runs or platform detection.

MUST USE when an existing .NET test project was excluded from a .slnf/CI solution filter, disappeared from .sln/.slnx discovery, or lost its production ProjectReference; also for requests to set up, create, reuse, add, register, include, or repair a test project.

Identify a .NET project's test platform, framework, command mode, and SDK-style vs classic project system. Use only for "which test platform/framework?", "VSTest or MTP?", or "what runner does this project use?", including bridge settings, UseVSTest opt-outs, and incompatible or conflicting VSTest/M…

Convert .NET projects and solutions (.sln, .slnx) to NuGet Central Package Management (CPM) using Directory.Packages.props.

Migrate a .NET 8 project to .NET 9 and resolve all breaking changes. USE FOR: upgrading TargetFramework from net8.0 to net9.0, fixing build errors after updating the .NET 9 SDK, resolving behavioral changes in .NET 9 / C# 13 / ASP.NET Core 9 / EF Core 9, replacing BinaryFormatter (now always throws)…

Enable nullable reference types in a C# project and systematically resolve all warnings. USE FOR: adopting NRTs in existing codebases, file-by-file or project-wide migration, fixing CS8602/CS8618/CS86xx warnings, annotating APIs for nullability, cleaning up null-forgiving operators, upgrading depend…

Pseudo-mutation analysis ONLY: answer whether tests would catch a bug if production code changed, which meaningful changes would still pass, or which caller-visible mutations existing assertions would miss; verify candidates when requested, then optionally close verified gaps.

Analyze MSBuild binary logs to diagnose build failures. USE FOR: build errors that are unclear from console output, diagnosing cascading failures across multi-project builds, tracing MSBuild target execution order, and generally any MSBuild build issues. Requires an existing .binlog file.

Guide for interpreting ResolveProjectReferences time in MSBuild performance summaries. Activate when ResolveProjectReferences appears as the most expensive target and developers are trying to optimize it directly.

Diagnose MSBuild build performance bottlenecks using binary log analysis. USE FOR: identifying why builds are slow by analyzing binlog performance summaries, detecting ResolveAssemblyReference (RAR) taking >5s, Roslyn analyzers consuming >30% of Csc time, single targets dominating >50% of build time…

Activation requires either supplied .NET coverage reports/percentages/line, branch, or condition metrics, or an explicit request to collect .NET coverage for analysis.

Guide for diagnosing and improving MSBuild project evaluation performance. USE FOR: builds slow before any compilation starts, high evaluation time in binlog analysis, expensive glob patterns walking large directories (node_modules, .git, bin/obj), deep import chains (>20 levels), preprocessed outpu…

Set up NuGet trusted publishing (OIDC) on a GitHub Actions repo — replaces long-lived API keys with short-lived tokens. USE FOR: trusted publishing, NuGet OIDC, keyless NuGet publish, migrate from NuGet API key, NuGet/login, secure NuGet publishing.

Applies cross-parameter default rules when creating .NET projects with dotnet new, filling gaps consistently without overriding values the user set explicitly.

Diagnose and fix under-parallelized MSBuild builds. USE WHEN a multi-project solution build is slower than expected, doesn't speed up when you add cores, pegs a single core while others idle, or you want to know why `-m` isn't helping.

Configure OpenTelemetry distributed tracing, metrics, and logging in ASP.NET Core using the .NET OpenTelemetry SDK

Guide developers through capturing diagnostic artifacts to diagnose production .NET performance issues

Provides file paths to language-specific reference files for the test ANALYSIS skills (assertion-quality, test-anti-patterns, test-gap-analysis, test-smell-detection, test-tagging).