Aspire Visual Studio Code extension

The official Aspire extension for Visual Studio Code turns VS Code into a first-class environment for building, debugging, and shipping polyglot Aspire apps. Press F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 to build your AppHost, start your resources, and debug supported resource types — C#, TypeScript, Python, browser apps, and Azure Functions — alongside the Aspire dashboard.

Prerequisites

A recent version of Visual Studio Code and the Aspire CLI — install the CLI via the Aspire: Install Aspire CLI (stable) command from the Command Palette, or follow the installation guide.

Install the extension

1. Open VS Code.
2. Open the Extensions view ( Command + Shift + X CmdShiftX Control + Shift + X CtrlShiftX Control + Shift + X CtrlShiftX ).
3. Search for Aspire and install the extension published by Microsoft, or install it directly from the VS Code Marketplace.

Getting started

1. Open an existing Aspire project in VS Code, or create one with Aspire: New Aspire project from the Command Palette ( Command + Shift + P CmdShiftP Control + Shift + P CtrlShiftP Control + Shift + P CtrlShiftP ).
2. Run Aspire: Configure launch.json file to set up the debug configuration.
3. Press F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 to start debugging your Aspire app.

The Aspire: New Aspire project command, showing starter templates for Blazor, React + C#, Express + TypeScript, FastAPI + TypeScript, and an empty AppHost.

The extension discovers your AppHost from aspire.config.json, so both project-based C# AppHosts (*.csproj) and TypeScript AppHosts (apphost.ts) work without extra configuration.

Prefer a guided tour?

Help > Get Started > Get started with Aspire opens a built-in walkthrough covering CLI install, project creation, running, and exploring the dashboard — all without leaving VS Code.

Scaffold and add integrations

The Command Palette has commands for the most common tasks:

• Aspire: Add an integration offers a selection of hosting integrations (Aspire.Hosting.*) to add to your AppHost.
• Aspire: Initialize Aspire in an existing codebase wires Aspire into a repo that has not yet been Aspirified.
• Aspire: Update integrations updates hosting integrations and the Aspire SDK.
• Aspire: Open Aspire terminal drops you into a terminal with the Aspire CLI already on PATH for anything the UI doesn’t cover.
• Aspire: Update Aspire CLI and Aspire: Install Aspire CLI let you manage CLI installation.

Live editor integration

When an AppHost is running, the extension paints live state directly into your editor.

CodeLens appears above each resource definition in C# and TypeScript AppHosts. It shows the current state and health and exposes one-click Start, Stop, Restart, and View Logs actions in addition to any custom commands the resource publishes.

Editor title bar buttons add Run Aspire AppHost and Debug Aspire AppHost actions next to the standard Run/Debug buttons whenever you have an AppHost file open.

Health-aware gutter decorations provide an at-a-glance view of resource health and state without cluttering the editor with text using the following shapes and colors:

Icon	Meaning
✓ (green checkmark)	Running and healthy
⊙ (grey circle with check)	Completed — exited cleanly (exit code 0)
⚠ (yellow triangle with !)	Running but unhealthy (health checks failing)
✕ (red X)	Failed to start, exited with a non-zero exit code, or runtime unhealthy
⌛ (blue hourglass)	Starting, stopping, building, or waiting
○ (grey hollow circle)	Not yet started

The Aspire view

Aspire registers an AppHost view to VS Code. Workspace mode shows the AppHost in your current workspace; toggle to Global in the view header to manage every running AppHost on your machine.

Each resource shows its type, state, health summary, and exit code, plus a health-aware icon and a markdown tooltip listing endpoint URLs. Resources with health checks expose an expandable Health Checks group; use Expand all on the AppHost item to open everything at once. You can right-click a resource to start, stop, or restart it, view its logs, run resource-specific commands, or open the dashboard.

Run, debug, and deploy

Aspire: Configure launch.json file adds a minimal launch configuration .vscode/launch.json that supports AppHosts written in any language. AppHosts are discovered automatically in the workspace.

To launch a specific AppHost, configure an aspire.config.json with an appHost.path property.

.vscode/launch.json — launch

{
  "type": "aspire",
  "request": "launch",
  "name": "Aspire: Launch AppHost",
  "program": "${workspaceFolder}"
}

Four launch commands are supported:

• run runs the AppHost (default if command is omitted).
• deploy pushes to deployment targets defined in your AppHost.
• publish generates deployment artifacts like Kubernetes manifests or Bicep files without pushing to targets.
• do runs a specific pipeline step defined in your AppHost’s deployment pipeline — set step to the name of the step you want to run.

All of these commands are debuggable; you can step into custom publishers and deployment steps just like application code.

The debuggers property forwards configuration to specific debuggers. Recognized keys are: apphost, project (C#/.NET), node, python, browser, and azure-functions.

Finally, you can specify env and args to set environment variables and command-line arguments for the AppHost process.

.vscode/launch.json — deploy with debugger settings, env, and args

{
  "type": "aspire",
  "request": "launch",
  "name": "Aspire: Deploy AppHost",
  "program": "${workspaceFolder}",
  "command": "deploy",
  "env": {
    "MY_ENV_VAR": "value"
  },
  "args": [
    "--hello", "world"
  ],
  "debuggers": {
    "apphost": { "stopAtEntry": true },
    "project": { "console": "integratedTerminal" },
    "node": { "skipFiles": ["<node_internals>/**"] },
    "python": { "justMyCode": false }
  }
}

For more information, see Aspire publishing and deployment overview.

Language coverage

The extension detects each resource’s language and attaches the right debugger:

Language	Debugger	Required VS Code extension
Node.js / Browser apps	js-debug	None (built into VS Code)
Python	debugpy	Python
C# / .NET	coreclr	C# Dev Kit (recommended) or C#
Azure Functions	Per language	Azure Functions plus the language extension for your function app (C#, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Python)

Feedback and issues

Found a bug or have an idea? File it on the microsoft/aspire repo:

• Report a bug
• Request a feature