Microsoft has introduced a code assessment feature to its .NET Upgrade Assistant, enhancing the tool’s functionality to assist developers in transitioning between .NET versions or from .NET Framework to .NET 8.

The updated .NET Upgrade Assistant, available both as a Visual Studio extension and a command-line tool, now includes a code assessment component. This new feature scans the source code of a project to detect potential issues and dependencies that might complicate the upgrade process, as announced by Microsoft on June 25.

The code assessment tool provides a comprehensive overview of the entire solution, highlighting issues categorized by severity and estimating the effort required to resolve each problem. The tool pinpoints exact locations within the source code where issues are found, facilitating easier troubleshooting and fixing of dependencies. Developers can quickly navigate to specific lines of code needing attention, resolve the issues, and mark them as fixed. Additionally, links to relevant documentation, best practices, and community discussions are offered to aid the developers.

For those using the Visual Studio extension, application analysis can be performed directly within the integrated development environment (IDE). Command-line tool users can perform similar analysis by opening a terminal and navigating to the project directory. Both tools allow developers to save the analysis results in various formats, making it easy to share reports with team members.