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Michael turns noisy .NET build logs into a focused, ranked action plan in seconds.

Key features:

• Parses .NET build logs and groups repeated warnings and errors deterministically.
• Ranks issues by impact so you can fix the most important problems first.
• Generates clear artifacts: issues.json, summary.md, and summary.html.
• Optionally creates AI-ready fix scripts per ranked issue for controlled remediation.
• Runs as a CLI and as a GitHub Action for local and CI workflows.
• Ships prebuilt binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Current analysis scope is .NET build logs only. Default fix script templates use the GitHub Copilot CLI, but you can customize templates and command format to work with other AI CLIs.

Quick Start

Follow this flow for a first run in a few minutes.

1) Download and install

• Download latest release: https://github.com/Jonesie/Michael/releases/latest
  • Linux x64: michael-<tag>-linux-x64.tar.gz
  • macOS arm64: michael-<tag>-osx-arm64.tar.gz
  • Windows x64: michael-<tag>-win-x64.zip
  • (<tag> is the GitHub release tag, for example v1.2.3)
• Extract the archive.
• Run the Michael binary (or Michael.exe on Windows).

2) Run a build and capture a log

• macOS/Linux:
  • dotnet build | tee build.log
• PowerShell:
  • dotnet build *>&1 | Tee-Object -FilePath build.log

3) Run Michael

• Analyse only:
  • Michael --input build.log --output out --analyse-only
• Analyse and clear existing output automatically:
  • Michael --input build.log --output out --analyse-only --clear-existing-output
• Analyse with a result limit:
  • Michael --input build.log --output out --analyse-only --limit 5
• Generate fix scripts (default mode):
  • Michael --input build.log --output out
• Generate fix scripts and bundle them:
  • Michael --input build.log --output out --zip

Usage

• Help:
  • Michael --help
• Version:
  • Michael --version

Analyse a build log

• Example with provided fixture:
  • Michael --input data/build.log --output out --analyse-only
• Example with automatic output cleanup:
  • Michael --input data/build.log --output out --analyse-only --clear-existing-output
• Example with result limit:
  • Michael --input data/build.log --output out --analyse-only --limit 5
• Example generating fix scripts (default behavior):
  • Michael --input data/build.log --output out
• Example generating fix scripts and bundling them:
  • Michael --input data/build.log --output out --zip

Output files

After a successful run, the output directory contains:

• issues.json – machine-readable metadata and ranked issues.
• summary.md - Markdown summary with a ranked table and a single Details column per row.
• summary.html - preview-friendly interactive report with the same ranked data.
• fix-rank-<n>.<ext> - one script per ranked issue when fix generation is enabled without --zip, where <ext> is derived from the template filename (for example .ps1 or .sh).
• fixes.zip - optional archive created with --zip, containing generated fix-rank-* files; when this mode is used, individual fix-rank-* files are not written to the output directory.

Metadata now includes detected build tools/frameworks (for example .NET SDK 10.0.100, .NET, C#) inferred from the input build log, and this is shown both in CLI console output and in summary reports.

If the output directory already contains files, Michael asks for confirmation before clearing them. Use --clear-existing-output to skip the prompt and clear automatically.

Fix script template configuration

• Default config file path: michael.config.json next to the executable (included in release packages).
• Override config path with --config <file>.
• Configure the fix script template path at fixes.scriptTemplateFile.
• Built-in templates:
  • PowerShell: templates/fix-script.ps1.template
  • Bash: templates/fix-script.sh.template
• Script templates support placeholders: [[issueDetails]], [[fileList]], and [[samples]] (plus [[rank]], [[targetFileCount]]).
• The Copilot command line is hardcoded in each template ($Prompt in PowerShell, $prompt in Bash).
• When a ranked issue has more than 20 target files, [[fileList]] is replaced with a reference to fix-rank-<n>-files.txt, and the full list is written to that file.

Example michael.config.json:

{
	"fixes": {
		"scriptTemplateFile": "templates/fix-script.sh.template"
	}
}

Report details behavior

• Details column format:
  • Error Message heading + truncated issue message.
  • expandable Files section (collapsed by default).
  • Fix section with generated fix script file name (or (not generated) in --analyse-only mode) when not using --zip.
• In --zip mode, the Fix section is omitted from each row and metadata includes a Fixes archive link to fixes.zip.
• File entries are clickable links using VS Code URI schema (vscode://file/...).
• When line/column data exists in logs, links include location suffixes (for example :127:23).
• summary.html is recommended when you want stable expand/collapse behavior while opening links.

CLI Options

• --input <file>: required path to build log.
• --output <dir>: output directory (default: out).
• --analyse-only / --analysis-only: run parse/analyze/rank/report flow without generating fix scripts.
• --limit <n>: maximum number of ranked issues written (default: 10; values less than 1 are treated as unlimited).
• --config <file>: optional path to a CLI JSON config file.
• --clear-existing-output: automatically clear existing files in the output directory before writing new results.
• --zip: create fixes.zip in the output directory containing generated fix files.

GitHub Action

Michael is also available as a composite GitHub Action you can use directly in your workflows.

Run sample in GitHub Actions

Use the dispatch workflow at .github/workflows/sample-action-dispatch.yml to build the sample and run Michael end-to-end.

Copy this workflow:

name: Sample Action Dispatch

on:
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: read

jobs:
  run-sample-and-michael:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v5

      - name: Setup .NET
        uses: actions/setup-dotnet@v5
        with:
          dotnet-version: '10.0.x'

      - name: Build sample app and capture log
        run: dotnet build samples/sample-warning-app/SampleWarningApp.csproj > sample-build.log 2>&1

      - name: Run Michael action (local)
        id: michael
        uses: ./
        with:
          input: sample-build.log
          output: michael-output
          analyse-only: 'true'
          clear-existing-output: 'true'

      - name: Upload Michael results archive
        if: always()
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: michael-sample-results
          path: ${{ steps.michael.outputs.archive }}
          if-no-files-found: warn

Sample run screenshot:

Action inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
input	yes		Path to the build log file.
output	no	michael-output	Directory for report files.
analyse-only	no	false	Set to true to skip fix-script generation.
limit	no		Maximum number of ranked issues (CLI default is 10; use 0 for unlimited).
config	no		Path to a michael.config.json file.
template-file	no		Path to a fix-script template file (overrides config).
clear-existing-output	no	true	Clear existing output directory before writing.
version	no	latest	Michael release tag to install (e.g. v1.0.0).

Action outputs

Output	Description
archive	Path to a tar.gz archive of the output directory.
output-dir	Path to the output directory.
issues-json	Path to the issues.json file.

Workflow summary

The action automatically writes summary.md to $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY so the Michael analysis report appears in the workflow run summary page.

Fix scripts archive

When fix-script generation is enabled (the default), the action runs Michael with --zip, which creates fixes.zip in the output directory containing generated fix files. The action also bundles the full output directory into michael-results.tar.gz. Use the archive output with actions/upload-artifact to publish it.

Development

Prerequisites

• .NET SDK 10.0+
• Linux/macOS/Windows shell

Build and Test from Source

• Restore dependencies:
  • dotnet restore src/Michael.sln
• Build solution:
  • dotnet build src/Michael.sln
• Run tests:
  • dotnet test src/Michael.sln

Run from Source

• dotnet run --project src/Michael.Cli/Michael.Cli.csproj -- --help

Author

Peter G. Jones (New Zealand)

If Michael helps your team, you can support ongoing development:

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Copyright (c) 2026 Peter G. Jones, New Zealand.