Best of Visual Studio — January 2026

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   Article

   SD Times·20w

   XAML Studio is now open source

   Microsoft has open sourced XAML Studio, a developer tool for rapidly prototyping UWP XAML interfaces. The tool offers live editing, binding debugger, IntelliSense, and other development features. Originally created in 2017 as XamlPad+ during a hackathon, it last had a public release in 2019. The project now exists under the .NET Foundation as a seed project, with version 2 in development focusing on back-end improvements and WinUI 3 support rather than major new tooling features.

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   Article

   InfoQ·17w

   Microsoft Adds Custom Copilot Agents for .NET Developers with C# and WinForms Experts

   Microsoft and GitHub launched the first .NET-focused GitHub Copilot custom agents: C# Expert and WinForms Expert. These agents provide specialized assistance for C# best practices, async/await patterns, testing workflows, and Windows Forms UI development. Developers can activate them by placing agent instruction Markdown files in a `.github/agents` folder. The C# Expert enforces modern coding standards and minimizes code bloat, while the WinForms Expert prevents accidental modifications to `.Designer.cs` files. Both agents are experimental and represent a shift toward domain-specific AI assistance with persistent behavior profiles tied to repository context.

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