Posts

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user@runtime:~/blog$ ls -la posts/ --sort=date
dotnet-10 2026-04-05 9m

File-Based Apps in .NET 10: Scripts, Prototypes, and the End of Boilerplate

The dotnet run app.cs feature in .NET 10 lets you run C# from a single file with NuGet references, shebang support, and native AOT publishing -- no project file required. Here is how it works, where it shines, and where the edges still bite.

entity-framework 2026-04-04 9m

Vector Search in EF Core: From Exact Distance to Hybrid Search with SQL Server 2025

EF Core now supports native vector search against SQL Server 2025, from exact VECTOR_DISTANCE queries to approximate DiskANN-indexed VECTOR_SEARCH and hybrid search combining semantic and full-text results.

aspnet-core 2026-04-04 9m

Native OpenTelemetry Tracing in ASP.NET Core: .NET 11 Drops the External Dependency

ASP.NET Core in .NET 11 Preview 2 natively populates OpenTelemetry semantic convention attributes on HTTP server activities, eliminating the need for the OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AspNetCore package. Here is what changed, how to migrate, and what to watch out for.

dotnet-10 2026-04-04 10m

Post-Quantum Cryptography in .NET 10: ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA from System.Security.Cryptography

With .NET 10 shipping built-in support for three NIST-standardised post-quantum algorithms, here is how ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA work in practice, what the APIs look like, and what you need to watch out for on different platforms.

csharp 2026-04-03 8m

Collection Expression Arguments in C# 15: Passing Capacity, Comparers, and More with the with() Syntax

C# 15 adds the with() element to collection expressions, letting you pass constructor arguments like capacity and comparers directly inside the bracket syntax. Here is how it works, what it compiles to, and where it falls short.

visual-studio 2026-04-03 9m

The Copilot Profiler Agent in Visual Studio 2026: AI-Driven Performance Tuning That Actually Works

Visual Studio 2026's Copilot Profiler Agent combines AI with the built-in performance profiler to find bottlenecks, generate BenchmarkDotNet benchmarks, and suggest verified fixes — all from a natural language prompt.

dotnet 2026-04-03 10m

The GitHub Copilot SDK for .NET: Embedding Agentic AI Into Your Own Applications

The GitHub Copilot SDK hit public preview this week, giving .NET developers programmatic access to the same agent runtime behind Copilot CLI. Here's how to wire it up with custom tools, streaming, and BYOK support.

dotnet 2026-04-02 9m

Microsoft.Extensions.AI: The Unified AI Abstraction Layer for .NET

Microsoft.Extensions.AI provides IChatClient, IEmbeddingGenerator, and VectorStoreCollection abstractions that decouple your .NET code from specific AI providers, with a middleware pipeline for caching, telemetry, and function calling.

dotnet-11 2026-04-02 10m

Runtime Async in .NET 11: The End of Compiler-Generated State Machines

How .NET 11's runtime async moves async/await handling from the compiler into the runtime itself, delivering cleaner stack traces, better debugging, and reduced allocations without changing a line of your code.

csharp 2026-04-02 10m

Union Types in C# 15: Exhaustive Pattern Matching Without the Workarounds

C# 15 introduces union types with the union keyword, bringing implicit conversions, exhaustive switch expressions, and compiler-enforced closed type sets to .NET. Here is what they look like, how they lower to structs, and where they replace the OneOf hacks.

dotnet-11 2026-04-01 9m

Zstandard Compression in .NET 11: Faster Than Brotli, Built Into the Box

A practical guide to the new Zstandard compression APIs in .NET 11, covering streaming, one-shot, and dictionary-based compression alongside ASP.NET Core and HttpClient integration.

github-copilot 2026-04-01 9m

The modernize-dotnet Agent: AI-Powered .NET Upgrades Across Every IDE

Microsoft's modernize-dotnet Copilot agent brings structured, AI-driven .NET upgrades to Visual Studio, VS Code, the CLI, and GitHub.com -- turning what used to be a week-long migration into a reviewable, three-stage workflow.

tooling 2026-04-01 10m

JetBrains 2026.1: ReSharper Breaks Out of Visual Studio, Rider Gets an ASM Viewer

ReSharper 2026.1 ships as a VS Code extension, adds built-in performance monitoring, and fixes dozens of OOP-mode issues. Rider 2026.1 lands file-based C# programs, a native assembly viewer, and an open AI agent registry. Here is what matters for .NET developers.

aspire 2026-03-31 10m

Aspire 13.2: An AI-Agent CLI, TypeScript AppHosts, and a Dashboard That Exports Everything

Aspire 13.2 ships a CLI built for coding agents, preview TypeScript AppHost support, a telemetry export API, and a stack of new Azure integrations. Here is what changed and what it means for your workflow.

visual-studio 2026-03-31 11m

Custom Copilot Agents in Visual Studio 2026: Building Team-Specific AI Workflows

Visual Studio 2026 v18.4 introduces custom agents defined as .agent.md files in your repository, letting teams build AI workflows with workspace awareness, MCP connections, and access to IDE tooling like the new find_symbol tool.

dotnet 2026-03-31 10m

The MCP C# SDK Hits v1.0: Building AI Tool Servers in .NET

The official Model Context Protocol C# SDK has reached v1.0 with authorization, icon metadata, elicitation, and task support. Here is how to build production MCP servers that expose your .NET services to AI agents.

csharp-14 2026-03-30 10m

Extension Members in C# 14: Properties, Operators, and Static Extensions

C# 14 overhauls extension syntax with extension blocks that support properties, operators, and static members. Here's how the new syntax works, when to migrate, and what you still can't do.

dotnet 2026-03-30 8m

878 Pull Requests Later: What the .NET Team Learned from Copilot Coding Agent

The .NET team ran GitHub's Copilot Coding Agent against dotnet/runtime for ten months. The data tells a nuanced story about where AI excels, where it struggles, and what your team needs to get right before adopting it.

nuget 2026-03-30 10m

The NuGet MCP Server: AI-Powered Package Management in Your IDE

The NuGet MCP Server brings AI-driven package management to Visual Studio, VS Code, and GitHub Copilot agents — letting you fix vulnerabilities, update dependencies, and query package info through natural language.

csharp-14 2026-03-29 8m

Null-Conditional Assignment in C# 14: Less Ceremony, Fewer Bugs

C# 14 lets you assign to properties and indexers through the ?. and ?[] operators, eliminating a whole class of repetitive null checks. Here's how to use it, where it shines, and what the compiler won't let you do.

blazor 2026-03-29 8m

Running .NET in Web Workers: The New dotnet new webworker Template

How to use the new first-party Web Worker project template in .NET 11 Preview 2 to offload CPU-intensive work from the browser's main thread, keeping your Blazor WebAssembly UI responsive.

dotnet 2026-03-29 10m

.NET Agent Skills: Teaching Your Coding Agent to Think in C#

Microsoft's dotnet/skills repository gives AI coding agents specialised .NET knowledge through the open Agent Skills standard. Here's how the system works, what's available, and how to set it up in your editor.

dotnet 2026-03-28 9m

.NET 11 Preview 2: Runtime Async, Native OpenTelemetry, and AI-Ready EF Core

A practical walkthrough of the standout features in .NET 11 Preview 2, from runtime-native async and built-in OpenTelemetry tracing to vector search in EF Core and a resilient Kestrel parser.

dotnet 2026-03-28 8m

TimeProvider: Finally, Testable Time in .NET

How System.TimeProvider in .NET 8 replaces years of IClock wrappers with a first-class abstraction for testable, deterministic time — and how FakeTimeProvider makes testing time-dependent code straightforward.

dotnet 2026-03-22 4m

Worker Services and the .NET Generic Host

How to build long-running background services in .NET using the Generic Host and BackgroundService, with practical patterns for queue processing and scheduled tasks.