richlander/bad-code/dotnet-scope

dotnet-scope

A diagnostic instrument for .NET source code. Use this tool when working with C# projects that have build errors or when you need to understand what external APIs a codebase uses.

Installation

dotnet tool install -g dotnet-scope

Commands

diagnose - Analyze build errors

Pipe build output to get enriched diagnostics:

dotnet build 2>&1 | dotnet-scope diagnose

This provides:

• Source context with line numbers
• Links to Microsoft documentation (for humans)
• Raw GitHub markdown links (for LLM consumption)
• Suggestions for common errors (e.g., case-sensitive method name typos)

symbols - Show symbols at a location

dotnet-scope symbols Program.cs:42 -c 2

Shows symbols in scope at a specific line with classification (UserDefined, Framework, External, Undefined).

scan - Discover external APIs

dotnet-scope scan src/ --packages

Lists which NuGet package APIs are used in the codebase.

docs - Generate API documentation

dotnet-scope docs src/

Shows documentation for packages used, with follow-up commands for deeper investigation.

Example Workflow

When a build fails:

1. Run: dotnet build 2>&1 | dotnet-scope diagnose
2. Review the enriched output with source context
3. For CS0117/CS1061 errors (member not found), check the "Did you mean?" suggestions
4. Use the Raw: links to fetch full documentation if needed
5. Fix the issues and rebuild

Supported Error Codes

dotnet-scope includes documentation for ~3,700 diagnostic codes:

• CS* - C# compiler (1969 codes)
• MSB* - MSBuild (692 codes)
• CA* - Code analysis (315 codes)
• NETSDK* - SDK (201 codes)
• SYSLIB* - Runtime (170 codes)
• And 14 more prefixes (Razor, ASP.NET, Blazor, Aspire, etc.)