[spec] better `dotnet run` extensibility for .NET MAUI by jonathanpeppers · Pull Request #51337 · dotnet/sdk

jonathanpeppers · 2025-10-17T16:40:39Z

The current state of dotnet run for .NET MAUI projects is summarized by this issue from 2021:

Figure out 'dotnet run' CLI experience for iOS and Android

This is a WIP spec on how we can solve these problems.

Copilot

Pull Request Overview

This PR introduces a specification for improving dotnet run extensibility to better support .NET MAUI projects across iOS, Android, and Windows platforms. The spec addresses longstanding issues with device/emulator selection and deployment workflows that have made dotnet run difficult to use for mobile development scenarios.

Key Changes:

Defines a new extensibility pipeline for dotnet run with pre-run evaluation, device selection prompts, and a deploy step
Introduces --list and --target|-t command-line switches for device/emulator selection
Proposes new MSBuild targets (ComputeAvailableTargets and DeployToRunTarget) that workloads can implement

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

baronfel

Left a couple notes as a quick first pass, but overall this is a great representation of what we discussed the other day.

Would you mind adding a brief section on the applicability/generic-ness of this proposed mechanism and how it might apply to Uno/Avalonia/any other remote-capable tools you may be aware of?

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

Co-authored-by: Chet Husk <baronfel@users.noreply.github.com>

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

Co-authored-by: Rolf Bjarne Kvinge <rolf@xamarin.com>

dsplaisted

Looks really good. "Target" already has a meaning for MSBuild, so we may want to disambiguate in some cases. --target would mean something different for dotnet run than it does for other commands like dotnet build. Maybe that's OK. It might be a good idea to rename ComputeAvailableTargets to ComputeAvailableRunTargets.

baronfel · 2025-10-17T20:04:23Z

Maybe we use 'device' instead of 'target' like @jonathanpeppers wanted in the first place in our chat? so it'd be dotnet run --list-devices and --device, lifting the 'destination device' concept to a first-class run concept?

jonathanpeppers · 2025-10-20T18:57:54Z

I updated the doc to use the word "device" in place of "target", so this means:

dotnet run --list-devices
dotnet run --device Pixel7

We shouldn't use the -d shortcut, as the top-level dotnet command uses it for:

> dotnet --help
Usage: dotnet [runtime-options] [path-to-application] [arguments]

Execute a .NET application.
...
Usage: dotnet [sdk-options] [command] [command-options] [arguments]

Execute a .NET SDK command.

sdk-options:
  -d|--diagnostics  Enable diagnostic output.

Youssef1313 · 2025-10-21T14:33:39Z

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

+* Each platform has different behavior, regards to displaying console
+  output, etc.
+
+* Using an MSIX with WindowsAppSDK doesn't support `dotnet run` at all,


This is currently a big pain point. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to run packaged WinUI/UWP apps from command-line today?

Also worth noting that we could make much use of that on dotnet test side as well.
WinAppSDK might be the first thing we could support in dotnet test, but Android, iOS, Wasm could follow as well!

Since, the dotnet new maui project template is unpackaged right now, I think a future step is to see if we can improve WindowsAppSDK.

Do you know if there are any issues filed about this here?

https://github.com/microsoft/WindowsAppSDK

Oh, our friendly neighborhood Matthew, of course!

Unable to run Windows application from .NET SDK command line microsoft/WindowsAppSDK#2922

Youssef1313 · 2025-10-21T20:22:46Z

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

+* `restore`: unchanged
+
+* "Pre-run evaluation"


There is also a "build" step right?

Youssef1313 · 2025-10-21T20:23:23Z

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

+    `--device` switch. Listing the options returned by the
+    `ComputeAvailableDevices` MSBuild target.
+
+* `build`: unchanged, but is passed `-p:Device`.


Oh I see the build step is mentioned here already. But doesn't it happen before the "pre-run evaluation"?

today, yes - we're proposing changing that, either moving it entirely to the beginning or having a separate evaluation, based on the run-time requirements of the project being run.

Hmm, it's unclear to me what would change during the "build" step when it's passed a Device property. How can that change the result of the build?

An iOS project is built differently depending on whether you're building for simulator or device.

This means that you can either first select to run for the simulator or device, and then we'll present all the simulators or all the devices for you to choose from, or we can first present all the simulators + all the devices, and then we automatically build correctly depending on whether you chose a simulator or a device.

On Android, debug builds pick a single $(RuntimeIdentifier) for the selected device.

jonathanpeppers · 2025-10-21T20:48:07Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2025-10-21T20:48:16Z

Azure Pipelines could not run because the pipeline triggers exclude this branch/path.

MiYanni · 2025-10-21T21:01:27Z

Discussed offline. Helix and BA checks are stuck due to no AzDO pipelines running (skipped). Merging the PR...

Context: dotnet/sdk#51337 Context: dotnet/sdk#51914 In 63f7cba, we added the `ComputeAvailableDevices` MSBuild target, which I was able to test end-to-end: D:\src\helloandroid> D:\src\dotnet\sdk\artifacts\bin\redist\Debug\dotnet\dotnet.exe run -bl Select a device to run on: > 0A041FDD400327 - Pixel 5 emulator-5554 - pixel 7 - api 36 Type to search Unfortunately, the AVD name is returned from `adb emu avd name`, which simply returns the property: > adb -s emulator-5554 shell getprop | grep avd_name [ro.boot.qemu.avd_name]: [pixel_7_-_api_36] We can call `TextInfo.ToTitleCase()`, replace underscores with spaces, and replace "Api" with "API" to make the AVD name more user-friendly. The only other alternative I considered was parsing the `~/.android/avd/<name>.ini` file to get the `displayname` property, but it would still require calling `adb emu avd name` to *get* the path to this `.ini` file. It felt more straightforward to just format the AVD name directly.

[spec] better dotnet run extensibility for .NET MAUI

7207fdd

jonathanpeppers requested review from baronfel, Copilot, dsplaisted, rolfbjarne and vitek-karas October 17, 2025 16:40

Copilot AI reviewed Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Update documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

7655f8c

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

baronfel added Partner request requests from partners Area-Run Issues relating to `dotnet run` labels Oct 17, 2025

baronfel reviewed Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

jonathanpeppers and others added 5 commits October 17, 2025 12:18

Update documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

f86ea04

Co-authored-by: Chet Husk <baronfel@users.noreply.github.com>

Update documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

be8607e

Co-authored-by: Chet Husk <baronfel@users.noreply.github.com>

Update documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

478de96

Co-authored-by: Chet Husk <baronfel@users.noreply.github.com>

Update dotnet-run-for-maui.md

b2b3be7

Mention other frameworks

67d45c2

jonathanpeppers commented Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Show resolved Hide resolved

rolfbjarne reviewed Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Update documentation/specs/dotnet-run-for-maui.md

121d09a

Co-authored-by: Rolf Bjarne Kvinge <rolf@xamarin.com>

dsplaisted approved these changes Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

Update dotnet-run-for-maui.md

c7699a2

jonathanpeppers added 3 commits October 20, 2025 12:26

Naming!

527e5d1

Remove -d

4d9d5ff

Update dotnet-run-for-maui.md

a28b1b7

Youssef1313 reviewed Oct 21, 2025

View reviewed changes

Update dotnet-run-for-maui.md

bac3b65

baronfel approved these changes Oct 21, 2025

View reviewed changes

Merge branch 'main' into dev/peppers/dotnet-run-maui

8b1e787

rolfbjarne approved these changes Oct 21, 2025

View reviewed changes

Youssef1313 reviewed Oct 21, 2025

View reviewed changes

MiYanni merged commit ffaba75 into dotnet:main Oct 21, 2025
5 of 7 checks passed

dotnet-maestro bot mentioned this pull request Oct 22, 2025

[main] Source code updates from dotnet/sdk dotnet/dotnet#3032

Merged

jonathanpeppers mentioned this pull request Dec 2, 2025

[Epic] vibe-coding .NET MAUI apps works out of the box dotnet/maui#32967

Open

51 tasks

jonathanpeppers mentioned this pull request Dec 2, 2025

[xabt] title case ComputeAvailableDevices dotnet/android#10623

Merged

Conversation

jonathanpeppers commented Oct 17, 2025

Uh oh!

Copilot AI left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Pull Request Overview

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

baronfel left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

dsplaisted left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

baronfel commented Oct 17, 2025

Uh oh!

jonathanpeppers commented Oct 20, 2025

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

jonathanpeppers commented Oct 21, 2025

Uh oh!

azure-pipelines bot commented Oct 21, 2025

Uh oh!

MiYanni commented Oct 21, 2025

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

7 participants