How to get reload to work outside of Visual Studio?

[Kralizek]

I'm trying to get my services reloaded automatically while working with JetBrains Rider.

I've tried the following:

• Used the .NET Watch Run plugin. Nope.
• Started dotnet watch run --project ./src/AppHost/. Nope.

[DamianEdwards]

'dotnet watch' works from the command line but will tear down more than required until it's updated to implement the launch semantics. Same goes for Rider.

[Kralizek]

Just an update here: as far as I see, using dotnet watch --project AppHost run doesn't restart resource projects when modified. It works hitting CTRL+R on the terminal, but I would love the same experience as in tye run --watch

[rcocks-hl]

Hitting CTRL+R also has the large downside of restarting everything.

Ideally just the affected project would be reloaded.

[Kralizek]

Projects are actually reloaded but some visual cue when a project is reloaded/restarted in the AppHost log would be a nice thing to have.

[DamianEdwards]

dotnet watch is being updated to better hand Aspire AppHost projects: dotnet/sdk#36971

[ctolkien]

Is reload supposed to work even within VS right now? We're having to explicitly build again (which restarts all services)

[rcocks-hl]

@DamianEdwards Has that effort stalled?

[DamianEdwards]

It depends on what one means by reload. Hot Reload works for supported changes in the app projects but not in the AppHost project. Auto-rebuild and restart of app projects works in VS for app projects when launching without debugging but changes to the AppHost will cause all apps to restart. dotnet watch has been updated to better support Aspire scenarios and will be available in the .NET 9 SDK I believe.

This is a complicated problem which we will continue to make progress on release to release.

[rcocks-hl]

Thanks @DamianEdwards, I'll try with the .net 9 SDK to see if there have been improvements. It may be that this has worked how I'd expect, but I haven't been aware due to the lack of logging in the console when launching via the apphost. Hopefully the .NET 9 SDK update brings that kind of improvement.

[DamianEdwards]

Aspire 8.1 added more logging in the AppHost project in that it now forwards logs from the resources being orchestrated. You can of course adjust the logging levels and filters too to see more logs.

[rcocks-hl]

@DamianEdwards I've tried again with Aspire 8.1, albeit on SDK v8.0.7 and I've been unable to get the message I'm interested forwarded.

In apphost I do now see forwarded messages, but the specific message that would normally be generated when running individually do not get forwared.

For example, running dotnet watch --project .\AspireSample.Web\ and changing Components\Pages\Home.razor. results in a console message:

dotnet watch ⌚ File changed: .\AspireSample.Web\Components\Pages\Home.razor.

And the page is updated live while viewing, without refreshing.

This message does not appear to be a standard ILogger format message.

Launching watch via the appHost however: dotnet watch --project .\AspireSample.AppHost\

And changing the same file.

Does not result in any log, and the change is not "pushed" to the client.

Manually refreshing reveal the change has been hot-reloaded in the background.

I'll test again with the .NET 9 SDK to compare. I'll need to wait until I'm on my home account for that.

[DamianEdwards]

This message does not appear to be a standard ILogger format message.

Correct. That message is emitted by dotnet watch itself, not your applications.

I'll test again with the .NET 9 SDK to compare. I'll need to wait until I'm on my home account for that.

I believe this should work in the .NET 9 SDK as it has the dotnet watch updates, right @davidfowl?

[davidfowl]

The work isn't in yet. It's still in a pull request. Track dotnet/sdk#36971