Visual Studio development of Dapr apps

[RicardoNiepel]

Currently only the development of Dapr applications in VS Code and IntelliJ is documented:
https://github.com/dapr/docs/tree/master/howto#developer-tooling

There should also be something similiar for Visual Studio 2019:

• Enable debugging / "F5 experience" of Dapr applications in Visual Studio
• Ensure that this include a story of multiple Dapr applications inside one solution and starting multiple of them
• Ensure that the Yeoman Dapr generator for C# Dapr applications is generating all things needed for efficient development in Visual Studio

If Visual Studio does not support a productive development, we need an extension approach, like we have for VSCode: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dapr

Tye with Dapr integration is going into this direction - but it is only experimental.

[ddobric]

When looking into Tye, have to say that Tye extrimely simplifies the deployment. For this reason, I propose similar concept in dapr.
For example:

dapr deploy <path>

This would be a great simplification.

[vinayada1]

Thanks. Could you please send your feedback on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/suggest-a-feature?view=vs-2019?

[Fabian-Schmidt]

Hi, I have played around with Visual Studio and Dapr applications.
I found two options to achive a F5 debug experience in Visual Studio.

Dotnet app starting Dapr

Modify your .NET app to start Dapr process

Need Nuget package System.CommandLine.

public static void Main(string[] args) {
var rootCommand = new RootCommand
{
    new Option<string[]>("--DAPR_CMD")
};
rootCommand.Handler = CommandHandler.Create((string[] DAPR_CMD) =>
{
    if (DAPR_CMD != null && DAPR_CMD.Length > 0)
    {
        var cmd = DAPR_CMD[0];
        var cmdArgs = DAPR_CMD[1..];
        if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(cmd))
        {
            DaprProcess = new System.Diagnostics.Process
            {
                StartInfo =
                {
                    FileName = cmd,
                    Arguments = string.Join(' ', cmdArgs),
                }
            };
            DaprProcess.Start();
        }
    }
});
rootCommand.Invoke(args);

The necessary launchSettings.json

"Dapr": {
  "commandName": "Project",
  "commandLineArgs": "--DAPR_CMD dapr run --app-id mydaprapp --components-path ./components/ --app-port 5000 --dapr-http-port 5005 --dapr-grpc-port 5006",
  "launchUrl": "swagger",
  "environmentVariables": {
    "DAPR_HTTP_PORT": "5005",
    "DAPR_GRPC_PORT": "5006",
    "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
  },
  "dotnetRunMessages": "true",
  "applicationUrl": "https://localhost:5001;http://localhost:5000"
}

Use VS extension

Need PowerShell 7 / Core installed (Example: dotnet tool install --global PowerShell)

Need the Visual Studio extension Microsoft Child Process Debugging Power Tool installed.

Activate Child Process Debugging Settings and configure:

Enabled	Process name	Action	Debugger Type
Yes	<All other processeses>	Do not debug	<Inherit from parent process>
Yes	dapr.exe	Attach debugger	Native
Yes	dotnet.exe	Attach debugger	Native
Yes	myapp.exe	Attach debugger	Managed (.NET Core, .NET 5+)

The necessary launchSettings.json

"Dapr-PWSH": {
  "commandName": "Executable",
  "executablePath": "pwsh",
  "commandLineArgs": "-Command \"dapr run --app-id mydaprapp --components-path ./components/ --app-port 5000 --dapr-http-port 5005 --dapr-grpc-port 5006 -- dotnet run --no-build\"",
  "workingDirectory": ".",
  "environmentVariables": {
    "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
  },
  "nativeDebugging": true
}

[wjkhappy14]

thks

[DanielHazlewood]

Could we include something in the documentation for this? So far only IntelliJ and VSCode is documented. This seems a bit strange considering the flagship nature of Visual Studio 2022 and this being a Microsoft driven project.

[toresenneseth]

Just starting to explore Dapr, and came across Dapr sidekick which seems to make debugging in VS very easy. Might get me into trouble...don't know yet :)

[Joffreyvl]

@Fabian-Schmidt I can't seem to figure out the extension way

I have the following settings

"Dapr": {
  "commandName": "Executable",
  "executablePath": "powershell",
  "commandLineArgs": "-Command \"dapr run --app-id pmo-api -- dotnet run --urls http://localhost:5000\"",
  "workingDirectory": ".",
  "nativeDebugging": true,
  "environmentVariables": {
  }
},

Am I missing something?