.NET skills

Scaffolds new agent skills for the dotnet/skills repository. Use when creating a new skill, generating SKILL.md files, writing a skill description that the runtime will actually route to, or setting up skill directory structures. Handles frontmatter generation, section templates, and validation guidance. Do not use for fixing a skill that already fails its evaluation (use improve-skill-quality) or for writing eval.yaml (use create-skill-test).

Generate or add unit tests for existing code, from one function to a complete project-wide suite. ALWAYS USE when asked to "write unit tests", "add tests", "generate tests", "cover this untested method", scaffold tests where none exist, or create comprehensive tests across multiple modules or packages. Polyglot: C#/.NET, Python/pytest, TS/JS, Go, Rust, Java, Ruby. Handles classic non-SDK/packages.config MSTest projects, explicit Compile registration, sparse workspaces, existing-suite extension, and proportional focused work. DO NOT USE for only running/diagnosing tests, analyzing a coverage report, auditing test quality, or answering an MSTest API question without writing tests.

Make interactive Blazor components work correctly with prerendering. USE FOR fixing duplicate data loads, UI flicker during prerender-to-interactive handoff, null references during prerender, persisting state across prerender, disabling prerendering, excluding pages from interactive routing, or detecting whether a component is currently prerendering. DO NOT USE for choosing which render mode to use (see create-blazor-project) or general component authoring (see author-component).

Guide for using MSBuild Server to improve CLI build performance. Activate when developers report slow incremental builds from the command line, or when CLI builds are noticeably slower than IDE builds. Covers MSBUILDUSESERVER=1 environment variable for persistent server-based caching. Do not activate for IDE-based builds (Visual Studio already uses a long-lived process).

Project-wide code coverage and CRAP (Change Risk Anti-Patterns) score analysis for .NET projects. Calculates CRAP scores per method and surfaces risk hotspots — complex code with low coverage that is dangerous to modify. Use to diagnose why coverage is stuck or plateaued, identify what methods block improvement, or get project-wide coverage analysis with risk ranking. USE FOR: coverage stuck, coverage plateau, can't increase coverage, what's blocking coverage, coverage gap, CRAP scores, risk hotspots, where to add tests, coverage analysis, coverage report. DO NOT USE FOR: targeted single-method CRAP analysis (use crap-score); auditing test code for coverage-touching or other anti-patterns (use test-anti-patterns); writing tests; running tests (use run-tests). Requires or produces coverage (Cobertura) and CRAP metrics.

Scans .NET code for ~50 performance anti-patterns across async, memory, strings, collections, LINQ, regex, serialization, and I/O with tiered severity classification. Use when analyzing .NET code for optimization opportunities, reviewing hot paths, or auditing allocation-heavy patterns.

Symbolicate the .NET runtime frames in an Android tombstone file. Extracts BuildIds and PC offsets from the native backtrace, downloads debug symbols from the Microsoft symbol server, and runs llvm-symbolizer to produce function names with source file and line numbers. USE FOR triaging a .NET MAUI or Mono Android app crash from a tombstone, resolving native backtrace frames in libmonosgen-2.0.so or libcoreclr.so to .NET runtime source code, or investigating SIGABRT, SIGSEGV, or other native signals originating from the .NET runtime on Android. DO NOT USE FOR pure Java/Kotlin crashes, managed .NET exceptions that are already captured in logcat, or iOS crash logs. INVOKES Symbolicate-Tombstone.ps1 script, llvm-symbolizer, Microsoft symbol server.

Plan complex Blazor UI features by decomposing them into focused components. USE FOR: building a complex Blazor page with multiple sections, planning component decomposition, designing a multi-section dashboard or layout, breaking down a large UI feature into composable components, pages with sidebars and content panels, any page with 3+ distinct visual sections or multiple interacting sub-features, identifying parent-child relationships and data flow. DO NOT USE FOR: creating new Blazor projects or apps from scratch (use create-blazor-project), implementing a single individual component (use author-component), writing component code with parameters and EventCallback (use author-component), or simple single-component pages.

Run file-based C# apps with the .NET CLI when the user explicitly wants C#/.NET code without creating a project. Use for C# language/API experiments, one-file C# apps, small multi-file C# apps composed with `#:include`/`#:exclude`, or C# file-based apps linked with `#:ref`. Do not use for language-agnostic throwaway scripts, generic computations, Python/PowerShell-style automation, full projects, or existing app integration.

Add, review, or fix JavaScript interop in Blazor components. USE FOR: calling JavaScript from Blazor, calling .NET from JavaScript, collocated .razor.js modules, IJSRuntime, IJSObjectReference lifecycle, DotNetObjectReference, ElementReference, timing rules for when JS is available, IAsyncDisposable disposal of JS references, server-side JS interop safety. DO NOT USE FOR: general Blazor component authoring without JS interop needs (use author-component), forms (use collect-user-input).

Run or recommend the exact .NET test command. ALWAYS USE when asked to run, filter, or troubleshoot .NET tests or provide precise flags/argument order. Supports SDK-style dotnet test and classic non-SDK projects using MSBuild plus vstest.console/MSTest or repository scripts. USE FOR: all tests or subsets by class/category/trait; multi-TFM --framework; TRX reports; crash/hang dumps; VSTest vs Microsoft.Testing.Platform; bridged vs native MTP argument syntax; --filter, --filter-class, --filter-trait, --filter-query, and --treenode-filter. Detects MSTest/xUnit/NUnit/TUnit and packages.config/classic project constraints. DO NOT USE FOR: writing tests (use code-testing-agent), MTP hot-reload iteration, CI/CD configuration, or debugging test logic.

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), resolving SYSLIB0054-SYSLIB0057, adapting to params span overload resolution, fixing C# 13 compiler changes, updating HttpClientFactory for SocketsHttpHandler, and resolving EF Core 9 migration/Cosmos DB changes. DO NOT USE FOR: .NET Framework migrations, upgrading from .NET 7 or earlier, greenfield .NET 9 projects, or cosmetic modernization unrelated to the upgrade.

Optimize and improve the performance of slow Entity Framework Core (EF Core) queries: make them generate less SQL, make fewer database round-trips, and return results faster. Use whenever an EF Core or DbContext query or data-access path is slow or should be made faster — whether or not EF Core owns the database schema. For EF Core, not Dapper or raw ADO.NET.

Guidance for .NET MAUI XAML and C# data bindings — compiled bindings, INotifyPropertyChanged / ObservableObject, value converters, binding modes, multi-binding, relative bindings, fallbacks, and MVVM best practices. USE FOR: setting up compiled bindings with x:DataType, implementing INotifyPropertyChanged or CommunityToolkit ObservableObject, creating IValueConverter / IMultiValueConverter, choosing binding modes, configuring BindingContext, relative bindings, binding fallbacks, StringFormat, code-behind SetBinding with lambdas, and enforcing XC0022/XC0025 warnings. DO NOT USE FOR: CollectionView item templates and layouts (use maui-collectionview), Shell navigation data passing (use maui-shell-navigation), dependency injection (use maui-dependency-injection), or animations triggered by property changes (use .NET MAUI animation APIs).

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. Explains that the reported time includes wait time for dependent project builds and is misleading. Guides users to focus on task self-time instead. Do not activate for general build performance -- use build-perf-diagnostics instead.

Detect a .NET project's test platform/framework and SDK-style vs classic project system. ALWAYS USE for "which test platform/framework?", "VSTest or MTP?", a wrong dotnet test runner, or hidden runner settings in global.json, .csproj, packages.config, Directory.Build.props, or Directory.Packages.props. Handles SDK-version precedence and MSTest/xUnit/NUnit/TUnit. DO NOT USE for running/filtering tests (run-tests), hot reload, or migration.

Guide for optimizing MSBuild incremental builds. USE FOR: builds slower than expected on subsequent runs, 'nothing changed but it rebuilds anyway', diagnosing why targets re-execute unnecessarily, fixing broken no-op builds. Covers 8 common causes: missing Inputs/Outputs on custom targets, volatile properties in output paths (timestamps/GUIDs), file writes outside tracked Outputs, missing FileWrites registration, glob changes, Visual Studio Fast Up-to-Date Check (FUTDC) issues. Key diagnostic: look for 'Building target completely' vs 'Skipping target' in binlog. DO NOT USE FOR: first-time build slowness (use build-perf-baseline), parallelism issues (use build-parallelism), evaluation-phase slowness (use eval-performance), non-MSBuild build systems.

Guides technology selection and implementation of AI and ML features in .NET 8+ applications using ML.NET, Microsoft.Extensions.AI (MEAI), Microsoft Agent Framework (MAF), GitHub Copilot SDK, ONNX Runtime, and OllamaSharp. Covers the full spectrum from classic ML through modern LLM orchestration to local inference. Use when adding classification, regression, clustering, anomaly detection, recommendation, LLM integration (text generation, summarization, reasoning), RAG pipelines with vector search, agentic workflows with tool calling, Copilot extensions, or custom model inference via ONNX Runtime to a .NET project. DO NOT USE FOR projects targeting .NET Framework (requires .NET 8+), the task is pure data engineering or ETL with no ML/AI component, or the project needs a custom deep learning training loop (use Python with PyTorch/TensorFlow, then export to ONNX for .NET inference).

Author and review GitHub Actions workflow YAML safely so syntactically-valid YAML can't ship a workflow that GitHub Actions refuses to run. USE FOR: editing, adding, or reviewing any file under .github/workflows/, writing run-name/name/if/env/run values that contain ${{ }} expressions, diagnosing a run that fails with 'This run likely failed because of a workflow file issue' and no jobs starting, deciding when a workflow scalar must be quoted, validating workflows with actionlint. DO NOT USE FOR: authoring application YAML unrelated to GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, GitLab CI, or non-workflow YAML. SCOPE: this skill covers *syntactic/structural* correctness of workflow YAML (quoting, parsing, actionlint); for *semantic and functional* workflow design (what a workflow should do, agentic-workflow behavior), see .github/agents/agentic-workflows.agent.md — the two are complementary. INVOKES: actionlint (downloaded pinned binary) plus git/grep for inspection.

Guides creation and validation of custom dotnet new templates from existing projects. Generates a .template.config/template.json that preserves the source project's conventions. USE FOR: creating a reusable dotnet new template from an existing project, bootstrapping .template.config/template.json with correct identity, shortName, parameters, and post-actions, adding parameters or conditional content to a template you are authoring, validating the template.json you are authoring before publishing, packaging templates as NuGet packages for distribution. DO NOT USE FOR: validating an existing template.json as a standalone task (use template-validation), finding or using existing templates (use template-discovery and template-instantiation), MSBuild project file issues unrelated to template authoring, NuGet package publishing (only template packaging structure).

Suggests using Microsoft Testing Platform (MTP) hot reload to iterate fixes on failing tests without rebuilding. Use when user says "hot reload tests", "iterate on test fix", "run tests without rebuilding", "speed up test loop", "fix test faster", or needs to set up MTP hot reload to rapidly iterate on test failures. Covers setup (NuGet package, environment variable, launchSettings.json) and the iterative workflow for fixing tests. DO NOT USE FOR: writing test code, diagnosing test failures, running tests normally with dotnet test (use run-tests), applying test filters, producing TRX reports, CI/CD pipeline configuration, or Visual Studio Test Explorer hot reload (which is a different feature).

Guides migration of .NET Framework Thread.Abort usage to cooperative cancellation in modern .NET. USE FOR: modernizing code that calls Thread.Abort, catching ThreadAbortException, replacing Thread.ResetAbort, replacing Thread.Interrupt for thread termination, resolving PlatformNotSupportedException or SYSLIB0006 after retargeting to .NET 6+, migrating ASP.NET Response.End or Response.Redirect(url, true) which internally call Thread.Abort. DO NOT USE FOR: code that only uses Thread.Join, Thread.Sleep, or Thread.Start without any abort, interrupt, or ThreadAbortException usage — these APIs work identically in modern .NET and need no migration. Also not for projects staying on .NET Framework, or Thread.Abort usage inside third-party libraries you do not control.

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". Use when an evaluation verdict is a regression or underpowered, when a skill regressed after a change, when /evaluate reports no results, or when deciding whether a weak skill should be strengthened or retired. Do not use for scaffolding a brand-new skill (use create-skill) or a brand-new eval (use create-skill-test).

.NET MAUI safe area and edge-to-edge layout guidance for .NET 10+. Covers the new SafeAreaEdges property, SafeAreaRegions enum, per-edge control, keyboard avoidance, Blazor Hybrid CSS safe areas, migration from legacy iOS-only APIs, and platform-specific behavior for Android, iOS, and Mac Catalyst. USE FOR: "safe area", "edge-to-edge", "SafeAreaEdges", "SafeAreaRegions", "keyboard avoidance", "notch insets", "status bar overlap", "iOS safe area", "Android edge-to-edge", "content behind status bar", "UseSafeArea migration", "soft input keyboard", "IgnoreSafeArea replacement". DO NOT USE FOR: general layout or grid design (use Grid and StackLayout), app lifecycle handling (use maui-app-lifecycle), theming or styling (use maui-theming), or Shell navigation structure.