C# Dev Kit 11 becomes one Native AOT process: Aspire's open file ready in 0.47 s, not 84 s
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readMicrosoft described C# Dev Kit 11.0 on the .NET Blog on 6 October. The VS Code extension has been rearchitected as part of .NET 11, and its version number now follows .NET: the previous release was 3.3.
What changed underneath. Six managed processes that each had to start, load and connect before answering a question about the code have been consolidated into one server, compiled ahead of time with Native AOT. Project information is now cached: the first load of a project builds the cache, later loads read it. If the cache files are committed to version control, fresh clones and new git worktrees get fast tooling immediately, which the post notes is useful when working with agents. The extension also loads the file being edited first and the rest of the workspace in the background.
Microsoft's measurements.
- Aspire (407 projects): language support in the active file in 0.47 s instead of up to 84.1 s; whole solution in 3.0 s instead of 84.1 s.
- Orleans (155 projects): active file in 0.53 s instead of up to 50.3 s; whole solution in 2.3 s instead of 50.3 s.
- Memory of the Dev Kit server process: about 84% lower on Orleans, 81% on Roslyn and 85% on Aspire. The Roslyn language service and VS Code itself are not included and, according to the post, are largely unchanged.
Incremental builds also get faster up-to-date checks and Build Acceleration, features Visual Studio already had. The post says gains depend on solution structure.
New features. Editing support for .csproj, .props and .targets files, with completions for package names and versions and a CodeLens that flags newer and vulnerable package versions; and a "C# Doctor" that collects environmental causes of load failures, such as a missing SDK or a failed restore, in one place.