Maintained third-party Solution Explorer for VS Code C# devs after C# Dev Kit gutted the tree view

dev tool real project ••• trending

Cross-platform .NET developers on VS Code (especially Mac/Linux users who can't fall back to full Visual Studio) are furious that C# Dev Kit's v3.20 update replaced the dedicated Solution Explorer with a merged native-Explorer 'C# Project Details' view that truncates the project tree and breaks how they navigate solutions. The opportunity is a maintained extension that restores a real solution/project tree wired into Dev Kit's build, debug, and test commands.

builder note

The win isn't redrawing a tree, it's binding the tree to C# Dev Kit's build/debug/test commands so it actually drives the toolchain, which is exactly the integration the stale existing extension never had.

landscape (3 existing solutions)

Microsoft owns the regression and shows no sign of reverting it, and the one community Solution Explorer extension is stale, leaving cross-platform C# developers without a maintained in-editor project tree.

C# Dev Kit The official Microsoft extension that caused the regression. v3.20 folded Solution Explorer into the native Explorer as 'C# Project Details,' which users report truncates the project tree and removes the workflow they relied on.

vscode-solution-explorer (fernandoescolar) The main community option, but it is stale: last release v0.9.2 on 2025-12-03, 56 open issues, and it predates and does not integrate with the current C# Dev Kit build/debug/test tooling.

JetBrains Rider A full separate IDE (free for non-commercial use) rather than a fix; it is a heavy migration away from VS Code, not a tree view inside it.

sources (2)

other https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dotnettools/issues/3067 "has never programmed anything more than HelloWorld" 2026-05-15

other https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-dotnettools/issues/3145 "C# Project Details is a poor substitute for Solution Explorer" 2026-05-26

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