Visual Studio productivity guide for C# developers

Learn how Visual Studio makes .NET developers who use C# more productive than ever. Take advantage of our performance and productivity improvements like navigation to decompiled assemblies, variable name suggestions as you type, a hierarchy-view in Test Explorer, Go To All (Ctrl+T) to navigate to file/type/member/symbol declarations, an intelligent Exception Helper, code style configuration and enforcement, and many refactorings and code fixes.

For general productivity for .NET, C++, and other languages, see Productivity guide for Visual Studio. For information about helpful keyboard shortcuts, see Productivity shortcuts. For a complete list of command shortcuts, see Default keyboard shortcuts.

Use keyboard shortcuts from a different editor

If you're coming from another IDE or coding environment, you can change your keyboard scheme to Visual Studio Code or ReSharper (Visual Studio):

Some extensions also offer keyboard schemes:

• HotKeys for Visual Studio (ReSharper/IntelliJ)
• Emacs Emulation
• VSVim

The following are popular Visual Studio shortcuts:

Shortcut (All Profiles)	Command	Description
Ctrl+T	Go To All	Navigate to any file, type, member, or symbol declaration
F12 (also Ctrl+Click)	Go To Definition	Navigate to where a symbol is defined
Ctrl+F12	Go To Implementation	Navigate from a base type or member to its various implementations
Shift+F12	Find All References	See all symbol or literal references
Alt+Home	Go To Base	Navigate up the inheritance chain
Ctrl+. (also Alt+Enter in C# Profile)	Quick Actions and Refactorings	See what code fixes, code generation actions, refactorings, or other quick actions are available at your cursor position or code selection
Ctrl+D	Duplicate line	Duplicates the line of code that the cursor is in
Shift+Alt++/-	Expand/Contract selection	Expands or contracts the current selection in the editor
Shift + Alt + .	Insert Next Matching Caret	Adds a selection and caret at the next location that matches the current selection
Ctrl+Q	Search	Search all Visual Studio settings
F5	Start Debugging	Start debugging your application
Ctrl+F5	Run without Debug	Run your application locally without debugging
Ctrl+K,D (Default Profile) or Ctrl+E,D (C# Profile)	Format Document	Cleans up formatting violations in your file based on your newline, spacing, and indentation settings
Ctrl+\,Ctrl+E (Default Profile) or Ctrl+W,E (C# Profile)	View Error List	See all errors in your document, project, or solution
Alt + PgUp/PgDn	Go to Next/Previous Issue	Jump to the previous/next error, warning, suggestion in your document
Ctrl+K,/	Toggle single line comment/uncomment	This command adds or removes a single line comment depending on whether your selection is already commented
Ctrl+Shift+/	Toggle block comment/uncomment	This command adds or removes block comments depending on what you've selected

Note

Some extensions unbind the default Visual Studio keybindings. You can restore your keybindings to their defaults by going to Tools > Import and Export Settings > Reset all settings or Tools > Options > Keyboard > Reset.

For more information about keyboard shortcuts and commands, see Productivity shortcuts. Or, see Keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio for a comprehensive list along with a downloadable cheat sheet.

Navigate quickly to files or types

Visual Studio has a feature called Go To All that you can use to quickly jump to any file, type, member, or symbol declaration. To open it from the menu bar, select Edit > Go To > Go To All. Or, you can open it by using the Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut.

A small window is displayed at the top right of your code editor.

You can use this feature to perform the following actions:

• Change the location of its search bar or turn off the live navigation preview by using the gear icon.
• Filter results by using syntax such as t mytype.
• Scope your search to just the current document.
• Camel case matching is supported.

For more information about Go To All, see Find code by using Go To commands.

Enforce code style rules

You can use an EditorConfig file to codify coding conventions and have them travel with your source.

• Add a default or .NET-style EditorConfig file to your project by choosing Add > New Item from the Add context menu fly-out in Solution Explorer. Then, in the Add New Item dialog box, search for "editorconfig". Select either of the editorconfig File item templates and then choose Add.

• Automatically create an .editorconfig file based on your code style settings in Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Code Style.

• The code inference feature of IntelliCode for Visual Studio infers your code styles from existing code. It then creates a nonempty EditorConfig file with your code-style preferences already defined.

• Configure the severity level of a code style rule directly through the editor. If you don't have an .editorconfig file, Visual Studio generates one for you. Place your cursor on the error, warning, or suggestion and type Ctrl+. to open the Quick Actions and Refactorings menu. Select Configure or Suppress issues. Then select the rule and choose the severity level you would like to configure for that rule. This action updates your existing EditorConfig with the rule’s new severity.

Check out the .NET code-style rule options documentation, which also includes an example of a complete EditorConfig file.

Code Cleanup

Visual Studio provides on-demand formatting of your code file, including code style preferences, through the Code Cleanup feature. To run Code Cleanup, select the broom icon at the bottom of the editor or press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+E.

You can also run code cleanup across your entire project or solution. Right-click the project or solution name in Solution Explorer, select Analyze and Code Cleanup, and then select Run Code Cleanup.

In addition to formatting your file for spaces, indents, et cetera, Code Cleanup also applies selected code styles. Your preferences for each code style are read from the EditorConfig file, if you have one for the project, or from the code style settings in the Options dialog box.

Refactorings and code fixes

Visual Studio comes with numerous refactorings, code generation actions, and code fixes. Red squiggles represent errors, green squiggles represent warnings, and three gray dots represent code suggestions. You can access code fixes by selecting the light bulb or screwdriver icon, or by pressing Ctrl+. or Alt+Enter. Each fix comes with a preview window that shows a live code diff of how the fix works.

Popular quick fixes and refactorings include:

• Rename
• Extract Method
• Change Method Signature
• Generate Constructor
• Generate Method
• Move Type to File
• Add Null-Check
• Add Parameter
• Remove Unnecessary Usings
• Foreach Loop to LINQ Query or to LINQ method
• Pull Members Up

For more information, see code generation features.

You can install .NET analyzers to flag code issues. Or, write your own refactoring or code fix with Roslyn analyzers.

Several community members have written free extensions that add more code inspections:

• Roslynator
• SonarLint for Visual Studio

Find Usages, Go To Implementation, and Navigate To Decompiled Assemblies

Visual Studio has many features to help you search and navigate your code.

Feature	Shortcut	Details/Improvements
Find All References	Shift+F12	Results are colorized and can be grouped by project, definition, and reference type, such as read or write. You can also "lock" results.
Go To Implementation	Ctrl+F12	You can use Go To Definition on the override keyword to navigate to the overridden member
Go To Definition	F12 or Ctrl+Click	Press Ctrl while clicking to navigate to definition
Peek Definition	Alt+F12	Inline view of a definition
Structure Visualizer	Gray, dotted-lines between braces	Hover to see your code structure
Navigation to decompiled assemblies	F12 or Ctrl+Click	Navigate to external source (decompiled with ILSpy) by enabling the feature: Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Enable navigation to decompiled sources.

Improved IntelliSense

Use IntelliCode for Visual Studio to get context-aware code completions instead of just an alphabetical list.

AI assistance

If you're using Copilot, get AI assistance to help you write and debug code.

Unit testing

We've made numerous improvements to the testing experience. You can test with the MSTest (MSTest v1 or MSTest v2), NUnit, and XUnit test frameworks.

• Test Explorer test discovery is fast.

• Organize your tests in Test Explorer with hierarchical sorting.

• Live unit testing continuously runs tests impacted by your code changes and updates inline editor icons to let you know the status of your tests. Include or exclude specific tests or test projects from your live test set. (Visual Studio Enterprise edition only.)

For more information, see Unit test basics.

Debugging

Visual Studio includes the following debugging capabilities:

• The ability to search for a string within the Watch, Autos, and Locals windows.
• Run to click, which lets you hover next to a line of code, hit the green 'play' icon that appears, and run your program until it reaches that line.
• The Exception Helper, which puts the most important information at the top level in the dialog, for example, which variable is null in a NullReferenceException.
• Step back debugging, which lets you go back to previous breakpoints or steps and view the state of the application as it was in the past.
• Snapshot debugging, which lets you investigate the state of a live web application at the moment an exception was thrown (must be on Azure).

Version control

In Visual Studio 2022, you can use Git directly from the IDE to create, review, check out, and run pull requests. To learn more, see How Visual Studio makes version control easy with Git.

What other features should I know about?

Here's a list of editor and productivity features to make writing code more efficient. Some features might need to be enabled because they're off by default.

Feature	Details	How to enable
Locate File in Solution Explorer	Highlights the active file in Solution Explorer	Tools > Options > Projects and Solutions > Track Active Item in Solution Explorer
Add usings for types in reference assemblies and NuGet packages	Shows an error light bulb with a code fix to install a NuGet package for an unreferenced type	Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Suggest usings for types in reference assemblies and Suggest usings for types in NuGet packages
Enable full solution analysis	See all errors in your solution in the Error List	Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Enable full solution analysis
Enable navigation to decompiled sources	Allow Go To Definition on types/members from external sources and use the ILSpy decompiler to show method bodies	Tools > Options > Text Editor > C# > Advanced > Enable navigation to decompiled sources
Completion/Suggestion Mode	Changes the completion behavior in IntelliSense. Developers with IntelliJ backgrounds tend to use a nondefault setting here.	Edit > IntelliSense > Toggle Completion Mode (or press Ctrl+Alt+Space in the editor)
CodeLens	Displays code reference information and change history in the editor. (Source control CodeLens indicators aren't available in Visual Studio Community edition.)	Tools > Options > Text Editor > All Languages > CodeLens
Code snippets	Help stub out common boilerplate code	Type a snippet name and press Tab twice.
Paste JSON or XML as classes	Copy any JSON or XML text fragment to the clipboard and paste it as strongly typed .NET classes into any C# code file.	Edit > Paste Special > Paste JSON As Classes (or Paste XML As Classes)
Copy and trim indentation	Copy code from Visual Studio to another program (Outlook, Teams, etc.), without having to manually fix indentation after you paste your code. Available in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.7 and later.

Related content

• .NET C# documentation
• Working with C# in VS Code