Move generating IIS profiles in launchSettings.json from template to VS

[maartenba]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe the problem.

No response

Describe the solution you'd like

Currently, web templates generate IIS profiles in all launchSettings.json files. Not every dev team is using IIS, and for folks exclusively using macOS or Linux in their teams it's just noise and potential frustration when accidentally running the IIS launch profile.

Can a switch be added to the templates to skip generating the IIS profiles?

Additional context

No response

[mkArtakMSFT]

@DamianEdwards what do you think about this ask?

[Tratcher]

Here's a prior copy (maybe not the latest):

{
  "iisSettings": {
    "windowsAuthentication": false,
    "anonymousAuthentication": true,
    "iisExpress": {
      "applicationUrl": "http://localhost:54273/",
      "sslPort": 44367
    }
  },
  "profiles": {
    "Cookies": {
      "commandName": "Project",
      "launchBrowser": true,
      "environmentVariables": {
        "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
      },
      "applicationUrl": "https://localhost:5001;http://localhost:5000"
    },
    "IIS Express": {
      "commandName": "IISExpress",
      "launchBrowser": true,
      "environmentVariables": {
        "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
      }
    }
  }
}

This is harmless and easily to delete, but noisy.

It could be trimmed down to:

{
  "profiles": {
    "Cookies": {
      "commandName": "Project",
      "launchBrowser": true,
      "environmentVariables": {
        "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
      },
      "applicationUrl": "https://localhost:5001;http://localhost:5000"
    }
  }
}

[captainsafia]

Triage: We want to be careful about having too many options in the dotnet new prompt.

The added complexity to the user experience introduced by another flag doesn't seem worth the benefit.

The one-time cost of removing the settings after creating the template is also pretty low.

We've moved this issue to the Backlog milestone. This means that it is not going to be worked on for the coming release. We will reassess the backlog following the current release and consider this item at that time. To learn more about our issue management process and to have better expectation regarding different types of issues you can read our Triage Process.

[maartenba]

Given the number of parameters in e.g. https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore/blob/main/src/ProjectTemplates/Web.ProjectTemplates/content/EmptyWeb-CSharp/.template.config/template.json, I would think one more wouldn't hurt 😅

I appreciate the team may not have the bandwidth to look into this for now, but would a PR be considered for this?

[DamianEdwards]

Given we changed the default launch profile from IIS to Kestrel a few versions back now, another approach we could consider here is to remove the IIS profile from the template completely. We could then look at changing VS to add it on-demand if a user selects IIS from the launch/debug drop-down (i.e. always show an entry for IIS Express even if a profile isn't defined, and then if it's selected, add the profile JIT).

@sayedihashimi

[sayedihashimi]

I like the idea of adding an IIS Express entry and creating that “on the fly”, Bill is OOF so I can’t get his take on this but let’s see if @vijayrkn has any thoughts.

[DamianEdwards]

I believe we already have logic in VS to automatically create a launchSettings.json on open/launch if one isn't present in the project so this feels like a reasonable extension of that.

[vijayrkn]

We already have the notion of "dynamic profile" and that is used by WSL profiles in VS. They are only persisted to launchSettings.json when the option is selected. I believe we should be able to extend this to other profile types as well.

I am assuming that this would be a .NET8.0+ only change right?