dotnet-watch-attach

dotnet-watch-attach is a very simple extension which supports developers working with the dotnet watch (link) command. It is basically a simple wrapper around the coreclr debugger from the c# extension which watches your process list for a given processname.

• Extension page

Requirements

• Microsofts C# extension (link)

Configuration

Configuration is simple, since 0.2.0 you will only need a single task which defines a command that uses the dotnet watch command. This task is then used in the dotnetwatchattach debug configuration. For the task property, use the label for the earlier defined task. The coreclr attach task is fully configurable using the args property. A fully configured example can be found here

// launch.json
{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "dotnetwatchattach",
      "request": "launch",
      "name": ".NET Watch Attach",
      "args": { // Args to pass to coreclr attach
        "env": {
          "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
        }
      },
      "task": "watchTaskName", // Label of watch task in tasks.json
      "program": "<startup-project-name>.exe" // for windows Or "<startup-project-name>" for linux
    }
  ]
}

// tasks.json
{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "watch",
      "command": "dotnet",
      "type": "process",
       "linux": {
        "options": {
          "env": {
            // The FileSystemWatcher used by default wasnt working for me on linux, so I switched to the polling watcher.
            "DOTNET_USE_POLLING_FILE_WATCHER": "true"
          }
        }
      },
      "args": [
        "watch",
        "run",
        "${workspaceFolder}/<path-to-project>.csproj",
        "/property:GenerateFullPaths=true",
        "/consoleloggerparameters:NoSummary"
      ],
      "problemMatcher": "$msCompile"
    }
  ]
}

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Known Issues

• There is a race condition where the extension checks if the proces exists, and if it does it will try to start a debug session moments later. If during that time the process is killed (by rebuilding for example) the debugger will fail to attach and terminate.

Please create an issue / PR for any problems you may encounter.