CLI vs IDE vs Agent - It's a Race! Who can get started quicker with NET apps with Uno Platform!

A hands-on comparison of three ways to scaffold a new Uno Platform .NET cross-platform app: CLI (dotnet new), VS Code with the Uno extension, Visual Studio, and an AI agent (GitHub Copilot CLI with MCP servers). CLI and VS Code both came in around one minute, Visual Studio took about two minutes due to its richer wizard and NuGet restore, while the AI agent took the longest because it had to infer intent, search docs, and figure out build/launch steps from a vague prompt. The key takeaway is that each tool offers different trade-offs: IDEs and CLI are fastest for scaffolding, while agents shine when given more context and asked to build out full features autonomously. Uno Platform's MCP setup (docs MCP + app MCP) lets agents validate UI via screenshot and interaction tools, similar to Playwright for native apps.