Best of Visual Studio — December 2025

1. 1
   Article

   Visual Studio Blog·22w

   How AI fixed my procrastination

   A developer shares their experience using GitHub Copilot and AI agents in Visual Studio to complete three long-postponed projects during a holiday weekend: converting a book into a static website, building a TOON language parser and Visual Studio extension, and creating new color themes. The AI tools provided 5-10x speed improvements by generating code, handling isolated tasks in parallel, and jumpstarting complex work. While AI accelerated development significantly, manual refinement and traditional coding were still needed for certain tasks. The experience demonstrates how AI coding assistants can overcome procrastination by reducing the initial barrier to starting overwhelming projects.

   163

   6
2. 2
   Article

   ploeh blog·21w

   Git integration is ten years away

   Git integration in IDEs like Visual Studio has been under continuous development for over a decade, with "improved Git integration" appearing in release notes since 2013. Rather than waiting for perfect IDE integration, developers should invest a few hours learning Git fundamentals through the command line. This tactical approach provides immediate productivity without dependency on IDE features that may perpetually remain "in development."

   117

   18
3. 3
   Article

   ASP.NET Blog·24w

   Microsoft Learn MCP Server Elevates Development

   Microsoft introduces the Learn Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which provides GitHub Copilot with up-to-date Microsoft documentation, code samples, and learning resources. This integration addresses the problem of AI models lacking knowledge about recent technologies by connecting Copilot to current Microsoft Learn content. The server offers improved code suggestions, context-aware documentation, and faster problem-solving directly within development environments. It's available as a built-in feature in Visual Studio 2022/2026 and can be installed as an extension in VS Code, Copilot CLI, and Copilot Coding Agent through straightforward configuration steps.

   66
4. 4
   Article

   Milan Jovanović·24w

   The New .slnx Solution Format (migration guide)

   Microsoft introduced .slnx, a new XML-based solution file format for .NET that replaces the verbose, GUID-heavy .sln format. The new format is human-readable, easier to merge in version control, and aligns with the simplified .csproj format. You can migrate existing solutions using either the .NET CLI command 'dotnet sln migrate' or Visual Studio's 'Save As' feature. The format is supported in Visual Studio 2022 (v17.13+), Visual Studio 2026, Rider, and .NET 9 SDK (9.0.200+). While technically in preview, it's stable and safe for production use, with the primary benefit being dramatically fewer merge conflicts.

   13