Reading Notes #717

This week we have a collection of tools and articles that genuinely improve how we build software and manage our daily workflows. From automating pre-push checks to refining SQL formatting, these notes share practical wins for the modern .NET developer. Give them a read through before your next commit or sprint starts.

Databases

• I Built My First VS Code Extension: Meet Rainbow SQL (Frank Boucher) - A simple but very useful VS Code extension that helps when writing SQL. And yeah, a shameless plug.

Programming

• A faster, lighter C# Dev Kit - .NET Blog (Drew Noakes) - Understand better all the goodness in this upcoming new release of our beloved VS Code extension, C# Dev Kit

• Should I break down my Blazor page into multiple components? - I will have to try that Blazrlytics, and I know exactly which project to use it for.

• Use C# unions and closed hierarchies in ASP.NET Core (Dmitrii Korolev) - Really nice way to use a union to make a C# type accept both int and string. Like Kubernetes maxUnavailable, which accepts 3 or 42%

DevOps

• Before you push or deploy: Automate nine .net project checks with the spargine dev tool (David McCarter) - Interesting script, curious to see the output on some of my projects

Open Source

• Why every .NET library deserves a proper start Dennis Doomen - A really cool series of templates to help us start writing.NET package. It brilliant and customizable

Miscellaneous

• Volunteers Don't Quit. They Fade. (Henk Boelman) - Communities are so important; would it be in person or online. We really need to learn how to be better at keeping a healthy balance

• Anti-Patterns in Software Blogging · Refactoring English - Love it! So much best practices in a single post. I'm guilty of doing some of those patterns, but will do my best to change that right away.

I Built My First VS Code Extension: Meet Rainbow SQL

I have a confession to make. For years, every time I had to write or edit a SQL INSERT statement, I did the same little dance: put my cursor on a value, count the commas, scroll back up to the column list, count again, and hope I landed on the right spot. Then I'd change the value... and still not be 100% sure it was the right column.

Vous préférez lire en français? Lisez la version française ici.

With three or four columns, fine. But give me a table with fifteen columns and a few rows of data, and I'm suddenly back in school, counting on my fingers.

So I built Rainbow SQL, my very first VS Code extension. 🎉

The idea: just give me matching colors

The idea was simple. If every column had its own color, and every value used the same color as its column, I wouldn't need to count anything anymore. I could just see it.

Here's what that looks like:

health_points is blue, so the blue value is the health points. That's it. No more counting commas.

It works whether your statement is on one long line, or nicely formatted across multiple lines with many rows:

INSERT INTO items (id, code, price)
VALUES
  (101, 'ITEM_A', 19.99),
  (102, 'ITEM_B', 24.50);

Every id gets the same color, every code gets the same color, and so on, all the way down.

"But which column is this, exactly?"

Colors are great, but sometimes you want to be sure. So I added a little hover popup. Put your mouse over any value and Rainbow SQL tells you the column number, the column name, the table, and which row you're in.

And if you're more of a keyboard person (like me most of the time), the active column also shows up in the status bar while you move your cursor through the statement.

A small bonus: catching mismatches

While building it, I kept running into a second classic mistake: one value too many, or one value missing. You know, the kind of error that only shows up when you run the script... and of course it's on row 47.

Let me be clear: Rainbow SQL is not a SQL validator, and it doesn't try to be one. But when the number of values in a row doesn't match the number of declared columns, it highlights that row in red so you can spot it right away.

Row 2 is missing a value, row 3 has an extra one. Both jump out immediately.

The rest of the goodies

Here's a quick tour of everything that's in there:

• Matching column and value colors to follow each column through one or more VALUES rows.
• Single-row and multi-row statements, on one line or across many.
• Column details on hover: column number, name, table, and row position.
• Active column in the status bar while you move through a statement.
• Mismatch detection for rows with too many or too few values.
• Theme-aware colors, with separate palettes for light and dark themes. And yes, you can customize them.
• SQL-aware parsing that handles quoted values, comments, nested expressions, and the usual identifier quoting styles. It activates for SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, PL/SQL, T-SQL, and SQLite files. And if you ever want a break from the rainbow, run Rainbow SQL: Toggle Rainbow SQL Highlighting from the Command Palette.

Give it a try (and tell me what you think!)

Rainbow SQL is free and available now on the Visual Studio Marketplace:

👉 Rainbow SQL on the Visual Studio Marketplace

Or install it directly from VS Code: open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X), search for Rainbow SQL, and click Install.

If it saves you a few minutes of comma counting, I'd really appreciate it if you left a review on the Marketplace. It's my first extension, so every rating and comment means a lot, and it helps other people find it too. 

Found a bug or have an idea? The code is on GitHub at fboucher/vscode-rainbow-sql, and issues are very welcome.

Happy (colorful 🌈) coding! 

Reading Notes #716

This week’s highlights bring together some practical programming improvements, thoughtful reflections on the craft of coding, and a few interesting ways to work with AI. From open-source Blazor controls and smarter CSS optimization to Claude Code routing, Docker Sandboxes, and better secrets management, there’s plenty here to explore and put to use.

Programming

• Syncfusion Releases First Set of Open-Source Blazor Controls - That's good news, free components together us started faster

• Improving site performance by shipping more CSS - The GitHub Blog (Josh Black, Marie Lucca) - Nice performance tuning story. It makes me think we should all do the exercise more often.

AI

• Route every Claude Code message to the right model with Jev | Pulumi Blog (Engin Diri) - A really cool project that features the new JEV model. It's an OSS project and can be found on GitHub.

• Docker Sandbox Kit Spec: Authority as Code | Docker - This post shares the evolution/stabilization of the kit for Docker sandboxes

• Auto-accepting AI edits in VS Code - There is, most of the time, a setting in VS Code to tweak it just the way you prefer. Nice share.

• One Gym Session, One Cell Phone, One Working App ( jamie maguire) - Fun little experiment. There are things like this that you can safely one-shot because they’re well-known and predictable.

DevOps

• From API Keys to Access Control: Rethinking Secrets Management (Aanchal Mishra) - Security must stay a priority. I like what Postman did here.

Miscellaneous

• Something About Coding Stopped Feeling Good — and It Took Me a While to Figure Out What - We all noticed it, but only a few of us talk about it, and this post does a good job of putting words to feelings

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 ~frank

How I Learn APIs Quickly Using VS Code REST Client

When I stepped into a role with many APIs to ramp up on, I needed a faster way to explore endpoints, chain calls, and inspect responses without bouncing between tools.

The VS Code extension REST Client (humao.rest-client) helped me do exactly that. It lets you send REST and GraphQL requests directly from .http files in VS Code.

In this post, I will share the workflow I use to learn APIs quickly: keep requests close to code and notes, reuse values across calls, and avoid unnecessary copy-paste.

To start, create a .http file and add your requests there. Separate requests with ###; that separator is what makes the Send Request link appear above each request block.

Yes, you can use AI or tools like Postman and Insomnia to generate requests. But when your goal is to learn an API, it helps to keep everything close to your code and notes. I already had VS Code open all day, so I decided to keep my full API learning workflow there.

In my case, every API call is secured and requires an access token, so generating one is step zero. I could paste one token at the top of the file, but that approach breaks quickly: tokens expire, and pasted values can accidentally be committed or pushed.

That is why I keep credentials in a local .env file (for example: CLIENT_ID, CLIENT_SECRET, and TENANT_ID) that is listed in .gitignore.

Then I created my first request to generate an access token from those values:

POST https://login.microsoftonline.com:443/{{$dotenv TENANT_ID}}/oauth2/v2.0/token
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

client_id={{$dotenv CLIENT_ID}}&scope={{$dotenv CREDS_SCOPES}}&client_secret={{$dotenv CLIENT_SECRET}}&grant_type=client_credentials

Quick breakdown: each {{$dotenv ...}} expression reads a value from your .env file, so you keep secrets out of your .http file and out of source control.

• {{$dotenv TENANT_ID}} -> TENANT_ID
• {{$dotenv CLIENT_ID}} -> CLIENT_ID
• {{$dotenv CLIENT_SECRET}} -> CLIENT_SECRET

To execute the call, click the Send Request link above the request. The response opens in a new tab, and you can inspect the access token in the body.

Then you can use that token in the next request:

GET https://ecostruxure-building-platform-api-uat.se.app/api/Sites
Authorization: Bearer {{ACCESS_TOKEN}}
X-Api-Version: {{apiVersion}}

To avoid copy-pasting values, the better approach is to name requests and reference their responses as variables:

### ==============================
### Create Token
# @name createToken

POST https://login.microsoftonline.com:443/{{$dotenv TENANT_ID}}/oauth2/v2.0/token
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

client_id={{$dotenv CLIENT_ID}}&scope={{$dotenv CREDS_SCOPES}}&client_secret={{$dotenv CLIENT_SECRET}}&grant_type=client_credentials

Notice the @name createToken labels that request. After it runs, you can access fields from its response body. The response content is JSON and looks like this:

{
  "token_type": "Bearer",
  "expires_in": 3599,
  "ext_expires_in": 3599,
  "access_token": "eyJ0..."
}

For example, to retrieve the access_token value, we can use the expression createToken.response.body.$.access_token. When assigned to a variable, it looks like this:

@ACCESS_TOKEN={{createToken.response.body.$.access_token}}

Then you can use {{ACCESS_TOKEN}} in all your requests, like this one that retrieves all buildings:

### ==============================
#### Retrieve my sites
# @name getBuildings

GET https://ecostruxure-building-platform-api-uat.se.app/api/Buildings
Authorization: Bearer {{ACCESS_TOKEN}}
X-Api-Version: {{apiVersion}}

If you come back later and the token has expired, just run the token request again, and the variable {{ACCESS_TOKEN}} will automatically update for all subsequent requests. No copy-pasting required.

Extracting a value from a list response

What if a response returns multiple items and you need one specific ID? For example, the previous query returns multiple buildings, but I was interested in the building named "Virtual Building FB". The response looks like this:

[
  {
    "organizationName": "BDP Team",
    "organizationId": "2dd6da1e",
    "siteId": "34580992",
    "floorCount": 1,
    "spaceCount": 2,
    "deviceCount": 0,
    "measurementCount": 0,
    "includesDeviceAndMeasurementCounts": false,
    "name": "Frank Demo Office",
    "referenceId": "frank-demo-building",
    "area": 0.0,
    "metadata": [],
    "id": "4a69071c"
  },
  {
    "organizationName": "BDP Team",
    "organizationId": "2dd6da1e",
    "siteId": "34580992",
    "floorCount": 2,
    "spaceCount": 5,
    "deviceCount": 0,
    "measurementCount": 0,
    "includesDeviceAndMeasurementCounts": false,
    "name": "Virtual Building FB",
    "referenceId": "vir-fb",
    "area": 0.0,
    "metadata": [
      {
        "name": "location",
        "value": "north wing"
      }
    ],
    "id": "01ab96fc"
  }
]

To get the value of the id property for one building with a specific name, we can filter with JSONPath:

@buildingId={{getBuildings.response.body.$[?(@.name=='Virtual Building FB')].id}}

This uses the previous request response (getBuildings) and extracts the matching id.

ℹ️ NOTE: If this is your first time seeing JSONPath, read it like this:

• $ means "start from the root of the response body."
• [?()] applies a filter.
• @.name=='Virtual Building FB' keeps only objects where name matches.
• .id returns the id field from the matched object.

Then use {{buildingId}} in the next request:

### ==============================
### Retrieve all floors within a specific building
# @name getFloors

GET https://ecostruxure-building-platform-api-uat.se.app/api/Buildings/{{buildingId}}/Floors
Authorization: Bearer {{ACCESS_TOKEN}}
X-Api-Version: {{apiVersion}}

Dynamic variables

Other built-in dynamic variables include:

• {{$guid}}
• {{$randomInt min max}}
• {{$timestamp [offset option]}}
• {{$datetime rfc1123|iso8601 [offset option]}}
• {{$localDatetime rfc1123|iso8601 [offset option]}}
• {{$processEnv [%]envVarName}}
• {{$dotenv [%]variableName}}
• {{$aadToken [new] [public|cn|de|us|ppe] [<domain|tenantId>] [aud:<domain|tenantId>]}}

For one historical-data query, I needed to pass a datetime in a very specific format. I solved that by generating the value with a dynamic variable:

@currentTimestamp={{$datetime 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSS[000][Z]' -5 h}}

Then I passed {{currentTimestamp}} into the next request parameter.

Calling GraphQL from REST Client

Most examples above use GET requests, but you can also send POST requests and GraphQL queries.

For example, to get a building with its levels and rooms:

### GRAPH: buildings & equipment
POST https://ecostruxure-building-platform-api-uat.se.app/graphql
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: {{ACCESS_TOKEN}}
X-REQUEST-TYPE: GraphQL
X-Api-Version: {{apiVersion}}

query MyQuery {
  buildings(where: {name: {eq: "Frank Demo Office"}}) {
    id
    name
    levels {
      name
      rooms {
        name
      }
    }
  }
}

Here we use POST because the GraphQL query is sent in the request body.

The response looks like:

{
  "data": {
    "buildings": [
      {
        "id": "4a69071c",
        "name": "Frank Demo Office",
        "levels": [
          {
            "name": "Ground Floor",
            "rooms": [
              {
                "name": "Open Office Space"
              },
              {
                "name": "Terrasse"
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

GraphQL is powerful here because you can request related data in one call instead of chaining multiple REST endpoints.

In short: if you are learning a new API, REST Client helps you move faster with less context switching. Keep your requests in a .http file, reuse values with @name + {{...}}, and iterate directly in VS Code.

Lately, this workflow has been even more useful as my day-to-day work includes broader platform discussions and faster discovery cycles.

If useful, I can share a follow-up .http starter template that you can adapt to your own APIs.

Show Me

You prefer watching a video? I got you here a video I did sharing the how I use REST Client extension.

Useful references:

• REST Client extension docs
• JSONPath syntax overview

Reading Notes #713

This week’s collection explores the practical side of AI, focusing on governance in multi-model environments and the security advantages of robust sandboxing. I’ve also included some foundational perspectives on and organizational goals, along with a look into the history of one of my favorite tools, VS Code.

AI

• James Shore: Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth from AI? (James Shore) - Interesting first post of a series. This one focuses on what we should or shouldn't measure to see and understand the performance of our teams using AI.

• Project HydraFusion: Frontier quality via multi-model orchestration - The GitHub Blog (GitHub Staff) - That looks very interesting, and it's available in the CLI via the experimental features.

• Below the Harness: Governing a Multi-Model, Multi-Harness World | Docker - Interesting thought about the future (probably not that far because it's about AI) and how we will interact or work with it.

• 6 Benefits of Sandbox Environments (Kevin Wittek, Srini Sekaran) - I really like how this post explains the security issues, how Docker sandboxes address the weaknesses, and how its sandboxes differ from others.

Programming

• The Story of VS Code | Official Documentary - A ninety-minute documentary about VS Code. From where the idea started to what we know it as today.

Books

Measure What Matters 

by John Doerr 

That book has been on my to-read list for a very long time. As someone who worked at Microsoft using many OKRs, I was comfortable with the topic. Nevertheless, it was interesting to learn how other people use it in many different contexts.

Reading Notes #705

This week’s collection features a mix of critical .NET lifecycle updates and practical strategies for optimizing your database interactions. These selected articles offer helpful insights into everything from edge computing deployments to the evolving landscape of AI in modern workflows.

AI

• AI Raised the Bar (And Now We're All Tired) (Golnaz) - It's so true! So much can be done quickly today. An interesting question is: how do we avoid burning out resources and tokens? How, as human we stay smart? After all, life is a marathon, not a sprint!

Cloud

• How to Deploy Azure Local Small Form Factor (SFF) – Bringing Azure to the Edge (Thomas Maurer) - This post shares many information about what is possible to deploy on edge devices. It's not a how-to, however.

Databases

• EF Core LINQ Querying: Filtering, Projections, and Performance (Nick Cosentino) - This is a great post to quickly learn key principles and immediately improve the performance of our interactions with the database when using EF Core.

• EF Core vs Dapper in .NET: When to Use Each (Nick Cosentino) - Great post for developers or architects planning a future project. Both tools are great, so the decision factor depends on the context.

• Optimizing PostgreSQL on Azure directly in Visual Studio Code (Jesse Sullivan) - Interesting new tools in VS Code and Azure for PostgreSQL users. Curious to learn more about that Azure HorizonDB.

DevOps

• WSL container is now available for public preview (Craig Loewen) - This is great news; this will help improve deployment as now people can have an environmental test in WSL.

Programming

• Creating Dual Use Windows GUI and Console Applications (Rick Strahl) - I never thought about that complexity, and you would think that in 2026 it would be much simpler. Good to know!

• SkiaSharp 4.0 is here: announcing the first stable release - .NET Blog (Matthew Leibowitz) - Learn more about SkiaSharp that run under things like .NET MAUI and UNO platform. This new release should improve performance a lot.

• .NET 8 and .NET 9 will reach End of Support on November 10, 2026 - .NET Blog (Rahul Bhandari) - Time flies; it's good to have a reminder. This post includes a helpful timetable and references to help you migrate.

Miscellaneous

• Evaluating performance and efficiency of the GitHub Copilot agentic harness across models and tasks (Shibani Basava & Carlos Castro) - This is a nice post to learn a little about benchmarks.

~frank

Reading Notes #696

This week's collection highlights the rapid evolution of AI agents, exploring their asynchronous capabilities, deployment journeys, and their impact on DevOps and video editing. On the programming front, we explore new Git features and API versioning with OpenAPI in .NET 10. We also dive into some fascinating podcast discussions ranging from the GUI vs. CLI debate to generational perspectives in the workplace. 

Enjoy the reading!

AI

• All your agents are going async — /dev/knill (Zak Knill) - An interesting solution is explained in this post to ease our communication with AI agents.

• AI Didn't Kill Video Editing (It Made Some Nice Motion Graphics) (Golnaz) - It's so easy and convenient to think that AI is doing the work and could replace humans if you don't know what really is the tasks.

• From Local to Production: The Complete Developer Journey for Building, Composing, and Deploying AI Agents | Microsoft Foundry Blog (Takuto , jeffhollan) - Finally reaching v1! Hurray! And a new name for a VS Code extension.

Programming

• New features in Git 2.54: easier rebasing, hooks, and statistics (Andrew Lock) - A nice post that explains how to rebase correctly with the new features included in the last release

• Combining API versioning with OpenAPI in .NET 10 applications - .NET Blog (Sander ten Brinke) - There is a lot in this post. Close to the end, she explains how to configure SwaggerUI or Scalar to visualize your API. Nice, since now API doc is generated by OpenAPI.

Podcast

• 510: AI Agents: Claws, Copilot, GUI vs CLI Debate (Merge Conflict) - In this episode, James is put in the spotlight and needs to talk about this phone situation. Honestly, interesting discussion and they finally end up talking about the AI agent, you know, CLI versus UI.

• The Real Reason Young People Don't Have 'The Hunger' for Work (And What Leaders Need to Hear) with Generations Expert Dr. Eliza Filby (A Bit of Optimism) - I'm sure, like me, you heard about "the Gen Z are doing this" or "the millennials are like that". It's interesting to go deeper than this and understand the reason why the Boomer, the Gen X, all those generation they do what they do, and also understand the phase, the years, like why all those generations seems to get closer and closer.

• Can AI Agents Safely Become DevOps Engineers? (Agentic DevOps : AI + Infra Ops) - I read and consume a lot of AI as a developer, it's interesting to see the DevOps side waking up and are building AI agents that focus on DevOps.

• Chet Husk: .NET Tooling - Episode 399 (AI DevOps Podcast) - I never thought about that competition, the human versus the machine, related to the consumption of the output of a CLI. This was a very interesting episode about the performance and the priorities.

~frank

Reading Notes #690

AI keeps changing how we build, think, and even feel about software. This batch of posts & episodes mixes practical agent skills, vibe coding, and faster shipping with a bit of reflection on the old internet and why it still sticks with us.

AI

• 5 Agent Skills I Use Every Day (Matt Pocock) - This post shares really useful and impactful skills and explains how they work.

• A beginner's guide to vibe coding (Jessica Wachtel) - A nice and light post that describes the rules or the freedom of vibe coding.

• How VS Code Builds with AI (Pierce Boggan) - From shipping monthly to weekly, this post explains how the VS Code maintainers achieved that.

• Let your Coding Agent debug your browser session with Chrome DevTools MCP | Blog | Chrome for Developers (Sebastian Benz, Alex Rudenko) - That's a nice one! Really useful MCP

• 9 Ways AI Coding Has Rewired My Brain (Matt Pocock) - An interesting post that not only describes an efficient way to code with AI but also to stay relevant.

Podcasts

• Your Images are Out of Date (probably) - The Silent Rebuilds problem (DevOps and Docker Talk: Cloud Native Interviews and Tooling) - Very interesting episode. I guess I never realized how true it is that as soon as you download your image, they are outdated. This episode talks about the concept of silent rebuilds and tools to help us solve that issue.

• 503: Welcome to Tiny Tool Town (Merge Conflict) - With a name like Tiny Tool Town, my head always goes to Looney Tunes. No idea why, but this episode is not about that. It's about the collection of open source tools named: Tiny Tool Town, and they also talk about different models in GitHub Copilot.

• Building Software using Squad with Brady Gaster (.NET Rocks!) - Turn your Coplot to 11 with Squad. Carl and Richard talk to Brady Gaster about Squad, a tool for creating an AI development team using GitHub Copilot.

• Daniel Ward: AI Agents - Episode 393 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - In this episode, they talk about the different AI tools used by developers and DevOps people, and the trends.

• Everything Is a Graph (Even Your Dad Jokes) with Roi Lipman (Screaming in the Cloud) - Nice episode about different database and most obviously about graph databases. Very interesting to learn more about all that explosion of database types.

Miscellaneous

• Kill Your Ego, Ship Your Work (Golnaz) - Great advice from Golnaz in this post. This is why so many people want to work with her.

• I Think a Lot of Developers Are Quietly Grieving the Old Internet (NorthernDev) - I think this feeling is real and I hope it won't stay long.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, podcasts and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #671

From debugging Docker builds to refining your .NET setup, this week’s Reading Notes delivers a sharp mix of practical dev tips and forward-looking tech insights. We revisit jQuery’s place in today’s web stack, explore AI-enhancing MCP servers, and spotlight open-source projects shaping tomorrow’s tools. Plus, PowerToys gets a sleek upgrade to streamline your Windows workflow. 

Let’s check out the ideas and updates that keep your skills fresh and your systems humming.

Programming

• A quick look at Dev Tunnels (Mike Irving) - This post shares a very cool feature where you can make your local Host available to someone else to reproduce a bug or try an API without having to deploy. Pretty cool,

• 6 Steps for Setting Up a New .NET Project the Right Way (Milan Jovanović) - This nice post provides some simple best practices. It helps to keep the code consistent and efficient when the solution contains multiple projects or when multiple developers are involved.

• Debug Docker Builds with Visual Studio Code (Remy Suen) - Wow! Great update on this extension that will help us debug a dockerfile.

• Why I Still Use jQuery in 2025 (and When Not to) (Aniket Bhattacharyea) - I guess you know jQuery? If you do, this post tells us how to be sure when or not to use it. Nice.

AI

• 5 Essential MCP Servers That Give Claude & Cursor Real Superpowers (2025) (Prithwish Nath) - MCP servers are really powerful and really boost your compilot productivity. I wouldn't say they are essential, but definitely useful

• 9 open-source projects the GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code teams are sponsoring—and why they matter - Microsoft Open Source Blog (Stacey Haffner) - Those projects definitely need a look. They are very interesting if you're using mCP servers.

Miscellaneous

• PowerToys 0.95 is here: new Light Switch utility, faster Command Palette, and Peek with Spacebar (Niels Laute) - Lots of very interesting new features and a performance boost in this month's release.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week.

If you have interesting content, share it!

~frank

Reading Notes #659

This week's reading notes cover a variety of insightful topics, from enhancing your development environment with dev containers on Windows to prioritizing open-source bugs effectively. You'll also find helpful posts on integrating MFA into your login process, exploring RavenDB's vector search capabilities, and understanding the differences between Ask Mode and Agent Mode in Visual Studio.

Happy reading!

A wild turkey in my driveway!?

Suggestion of the week

• Supercharge Your Dev Containers on Windows (Mike Evans-Larah) - A great simple tip that can improve your experience while developing.

Databases

• Using Vector Search for Posts Recommendations (Oren Eini) - Cool demo using Raven DB

Programming

• Why You Should Incorporate MFA into Your Login Process (Suzanne Scacca) - You think the answer is simple, think again. Nice post that explains the difference between 2FA and MFA and why you should or should not implement one of those

• Aspire Dashboard (Joseph Guadagno) - Great deep dive about the Aspire dashboard, learn all the features packed inside it

Open Source

• How I Prioritize OSS Bugs (jeremydmiller) - A very instructive post on a real-life issue. It's harder than people think to prioritize. And it may help you write better bug reports...

AI

• Ask Mode vs Agent Mode - Choosing the Right Copilot Experience for .NET ( Wendy Breiding) - Still not sure what mode to pick in VSCode? Here is a quick post to clarify the options.

• MCP server integration in Visual Studio (Mark Downie) - Great update! That security stuff is very important and a good example using get up to store your tokens love it

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it! 

~frank

Reading Notes #657

This week's collection of interesting articles and resources covers AI development, DevOps practices, and open source tools. From GitHub Copilot customization to local AI deployments and containerization best practices, here are the highlights worth your attention.

AI

• Customize AI responses from GitHub Copilot (Matt Soucoup) - I talked many times about it, but now this is it, thanks Matt we have finally a blog post about instruction

• Pondering About Using AI for Coding (Shawn Wildermuth) - Interesting post about AI in our code editors.

• Top 5 MCP Server Best Practices (Ivan Pedrazas) - mCP server is a very hot topic, thinking about riding your own, here are five best practices to make sure you will be successful.

• Local AI + .NET = AltText Magic in One C# Script (Bruno Capuano) - A cool way to use AI locally and nice integration of the new C# feature!

• Containerize Your Apps with Ask Gordon (Steve Buchanan) - I already have Docker desktop on my Windows pc, I should definitely give Gordon a try more to come

DevOps

• Local Deploy with Bicep (Sam Cogan) - A perfect short story, I'll explain why the hell bicep can now deploy locally and how to do it

Open Source

• Introducing OpenCLI (Patrik Svensson) - A standard that describes CLI so both humans and agents can understand how it works. Love it!

~frank

Reading Notes #654

Welcome to another edition of my reading notes! This week, I’ve gathered a selection of insightful articles and resources covering topics like AI, cloud security, open source, and developer productivity. Whether you’re interested in best practices, new tools, or thought-provoking perspectives, there’s something here for everyone. 

Dive in and enjoy the highlights!

Suggestion of the week

• Copilot, The Good Parts: Efficiency (Rob Conery) - I love that post, it's so true! There are good and bad ways to use any tools. And I personally would really like seeing Rob build his stuff. Let's him know If you think like me.

Programming

• Zero-Trust Architecture for Cloud-Based AI Systems (Goodness Woke) - This is a perfect article to get started on zero trust architecture, its complete details and very interesting

• Fantastic Alert Messages Using SweetAlert (Héctor Pérez ) - A great component to manage our alerts in C# instead of having JavaScript. That makes code easier to test when all is in the same language.

• You DON’T Need Microservices for Serverless! (Derek Comartin) - A great post that explained the difference between cold coupling and monolithics versus microservices great post.

Open Source

• How to convince your boss to sponsor Open Web Docs (Patrick Brosset) - Open source is important! And to contribute, it doesn't have to be code. Nice post that shares ideas and explains a few things about OSS.

Databases

• What’s New in MSSQL Extension for VS Code v1.33 ( Carlos Robles) - It's great to have such a nice tool as an extension. I wish it would support more databases.

Miscellaneous

• Local code review with Docker and smollm2 before pushing to git (Gerardo Lopez) - This is a great idea! Definitely a good way to avoid the light of shame and be able to quickly validate that your code looks okay. It's also a great way to experiment free hook.

~frank

Reading Notes #653

Welcome to Reading Notes #653 another packed edition of insights, tools, and updates from the tech world! This week's roundup dives into legendary engineering wisdom, AI controversies, and the latest innovations in Docker, Azure, and VS Code. Whether you're exploring MCP, refining your scripting skills, or gearing up for the newest Azure Developer CLI release, there's something here for every developer.

Let’s get into it!

Cloud

• Azure Developer CLI (azd) - June 2025 (Kristen Womack) - Love that tool, great updates, so many new features and improvements in this version, very looking forward to try all of them, turning them all

AI

• Publishing AI models to Docker Hub (Kevin Wittek) - Running model locally is a lot of people are looking forward to it, so this is good news can't wait to try it

• Build Agents using Model Context Protocol on Azure - MCP is still a thing and can definitely be used in your app, and helps your agents. Learn more about how to get started in the doc.

• The Complete MCP Experience: Full Specification Support in VS Code (Harald Kirschner, Connor Peet, Tyler Leonhardt) - Sweet, looking forward to try it with the URL shortener mCP server that I created but notification scaling everything is looking very exciting

• How to Build, Run, and Package AI Models Locally with Docker Model Runner (Vladimir Mikhalev) - Nice new model feature integrated within docker..

• AI Toolkit for VS Code June Update (junjieli) - Nice update to a great extension, learn more about it

• What humans and Github Co-Pilot have in common (John Hilton) - This controversial tool, is it good or bad? I like the way the author of this post answers that question.

Programming

• Run C# Scripts With dotnet run app.cs (No Project Files Needed) (Milan Jovanović) - Really cool and light way to use C#. Nice post with real scenarios.

Miscellaneous

• Why Legendary Engineers Build Systems, Not Just Code (Peter Smulovics) - So true! It's all a question of time, but maybe not where (or when) you think.

~frank

Reading Notes #651

Welcome to another edition of my reading notes! This week brings some fascinating insights into AI's real-world impact, exciting developments in .NET and containerization, plus practical tools for improving our development workflows. 

From local AI-powered code reviews to Docker security hardening and the upcoming .NET 10 features, there's plenty to explore.

 

AI

• The promise that wasn’t kept (Salma Alam Maylor) - Interesting thoughts about AI and its impact on our work but also on our life, and the planet.

• Local code review with Docker and smollm2 before pushing to git (Gerardo Lopez) - This is a really cool idea! I'll have to try it.

Programming

• Converting a docker-compose file to .NET Aspire (Andrew Lock) - Cool experiment. I must say I did the same thing, and I encourage you to do it too!

• Inside GitHub: How we hardened our SAML implementation (Greg Ose, Taylor Reis) - Very interesting post that pushes the curtain a little bit so we could see behind the scene how this very used but notification system works and has been updated

• Announcing dotnet run app.cs - A simpler way to start with C# and .NET 10 - .NET Blog (Damian Edwards) - That's a really cool new feature (that we can test in C# preview), It will be so useful in automation!

Cloud

• Introducing Docker Hardened Images: Secure, Minimal, and Ready for Production (Michael Donovan, Nikhil Kaul) - Security is the concern of everyone. I like this idea of like more secure but still flexible container images. Have a look and see for yourself

• Podman vs. Docker: Containerization Tools Comparison (James Walker) - A nice post that explains the difference at a high level. This isn't a command-to-command comparison, but more scenarios and performance.

Miscellaneous

• Enhance productivity with AI + Remote Dev (Brigit Murtaugh, Christof Marti, Josh Spicer, Olivia Guzzardo McVicker) - I love the dev container environments, they are so useful! And I also use the remote one when I'm not on my dev device so easy. Happy to see that Copilot will be right there with me.

~frank

Reading Notes #650

It's time for another edition of Reading Notes! This week brings exciting developments in the open source world, with major announcements from Microsoft making WSL and VS Code's AI features open source. We've also got updates on Azure Container Apps, .NET Aspire, and some great insights on developer productivity tools.

 

Let's dive into these interesting reads that caught my attention this week.

Cloud

• Happy 5th Birthday Bicep! (Sam Cogan) - What?! Five years already! That's incredible, I remember all the discussion about how we make our business better and honestly, bicep is a big success. Congrats to the team

• Have I Been Pwned 2.0 is Now Live! (Troy Hunt) - New look, new merch, and confetti, all without API breaking changes! Learn all about this major update in this post.

• Announcing Workflow in Azure Container Apps with the Durable task scheduler – Now in Preview! (greenie) - Exciting news about a new service. It looks solid and perfect for integration scenarios. Looking forward to experimenting with it.

Programming

• Pushing a whole stack of branches with a single Git command (Andrew Lock) - I'm always amazed to learn how people use git. This post shares a very smart way to push clear feature in multiple branches

• What's new in .NET Aspire 9.3 (David Pine) - Wow! How so many great new features can be added in a single version?! Aspire is a must for all .NET developers.

• Accelerate Your .NET Upgrades with GitHub Copilot (McKenna Barlow) - That's the tool I've been waiting for ages! Adding a Copilot to the extension is the smartest move they could make. I'm going to update an app right away. I'll share more later

Open Source

• Edit is now open source (Christopher Nguyen) - That's a great news! I installed it half through the post and it great! Fast, simple, and tiny!! Love it!

• The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source (Pierre Boulay) - And another project that turns out to be open source, I love it, it's just fantasti,c read all the details and dispose

• VS Code: Open Source AI Editor (VS Code team) - I strongly believe in open source. Very happy to see this change!

AI

• Agent mode for every developer (Katie Savage) - Great new for everyone as the agent mode become available in so many different editor. This post also contains videos to shows some scenarios.

Podcasts

• Reimagining the Windows Terminal with Warp's Zach Lloyd (Scott Hanselman) - A very interesting talk with the CEO of Warp that answers so many questions I had about this very different terminal. Really interesting episode, and terminal too BTW)

• The power of empathy in leadership with Jerry Colonna (Macmillan Holdings, LLC) - This very interesting episode is about the power of empathy in leadership.

• 362. Maximal Fitness with Minimum Time with Ben Greenfield (Part 1) (Greg McKeown) - Interesting conversation with a triathlete about different ways to train and nutrition

Miscellaneous

• The experience is enough (Salma Alam-Naylor) - Whether we like it or not, we are people creature. We all need to stop hiding behind our screens and get out there!

~frank

Reading Notes #647

This post is a collection of my latest reading notes, highlighting interesting articles and resources on AI, programming, databases, and more. Each link includes a brief summary of what I found valuable or noteworthy.

AI

• Getting Started with Azure MCP Server: A Guide for Developers (Lee Stott) - Quick post about this new feature.

• Protecting against indirect prompt injection attacks in MCP (Sarah , Den) - Security must be in our list of priorities in all types of projects. This post explains how we can secure them.

• How to build and deliver an MCP server for production (Colin McNeil) - That makes sense doctor is known to encapsulate and simplify the portability of application

Programming

• Set the default file encoding - Visual Studio Blog (Mark Downie) - Nice tip! As a developer who works daily on different operating systems, I know to well this issue.

• 4 real-life examples of using reflection in C# ( Ali Hamza Ansari) - Very interesting and useful post that go over 4 scenarios

• Microsoft Extends SLNX Solution File Support in .NET CLI - InfoQ - Have you tried yet the new format? It's still on my to-do list.

Databases

• DuckDB in Depth: How It Works and What Makes It Fast (Barry Smart) - This is a very interesting post that explains a little bit more how a vectoral database works and why it's so performant with documents

Miscellaneous

• Help yourself to thrive (Salma) - The human body is an extraordinary machine, extremely strong and conciliant, but it also requires a fine turning. Great post, we must learn from it.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #646

Welcome to this week's collection of fascinating reads across cloud computing, AI, and programming! As technology continues to evolve at breakneck speed, I've gathered some of the most insightful articles that caught my attention. From securing MCP servers to exploring Rust, there's something here for every tech enthusiast. 

Dive in and discover what's new in our rapidly changing digital landscape.

Cloud

• Azure API Management Your Auth Gateway For MCP Servers | Microsoft Community Hub (PranamiJ) - Why all the fuss about MCP, we must not forget security. This post suggests a simple solution.

AI

• How Azure Copilot Helped Me Quickly Troubleshoot a Demo (David Giard) - That's a good example of how AI can help you not do the job for yourself but avoid mistakes and do it faster.

• Secure Remote MCP Servers With Entra ID And Azure API Management (Den Delimarsky) - Nice solution in Python to secure your MCP servers

Programming

• When ASP.NET Core Identity Is No Longer Enough (Andrea Chiarelli) - Authentication and authorization have an important place in our Apps. This post shares details about how things work and the different processes.

• New Docker Extension for Visual Studio Code (Remy Suen) - This extension was already a must, they made it better, it's a must must! But seriously give it a try and try it by yourself.

• From C# to Rust: A 42-Day Developer Challenge (Chris Woodruff) - Cool tease of an experiment that promises a lot of learning.

• How to Programmatically Create MS Word DOCX Documents with .NET C# on Linux (Bjoern Meyer) - Cool package that helps create Word documents. Perfect when running in a Linux container.

• Preview 2 of the .NET AI Template Now Available (Jordan Matthiesen) - New templates with AI, Qadran and Aspire, oh boy life is good!

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #644

This post gathers my recent reading notes on artificial intelligence, programming, and a few inspiring podcasts. It includes links to articles, tutorials, and fascinating discussions. Whether you're interested in the latest AI developments, .NET tools, or modern architectures, there's plenty here to spark your curiosity. 

Happy reading!

AI

• Microsoft Copilot in Azure is now generally available | Microsoft Community Hub (Ruhiyyih Mahalati) - Oh wow! That was fast! If you haven't tried it yet, you should it's extremely useful and quick. Ask something about your resources or services you would like to use.

• Build a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in C# - .NET Blog (James Montemagno) - A nice tutorial about the MCP server and how to use one in VSCode

Programming

• Generating architecture diagrams from .NET Aspire resources at publish time (Anthony Simmon) - This is one new feature that will be so useful. How many times did I need to refer to a diagram that was outdated.

• Exploring new .NET releases with Dev Containers - .NET Blog (Mike Kistler) - Really cool trick shared in this post. Yes, trying the new version in a container but how that container is build; that's cool!

• .NET Aspire 9.2 is Now Available with New Ways to Deploy - .NET Blog (Jeffrey Fritz) - This week was the release of Aspire new version, and it's packed with many features. The launch party video is also very interesting.

• Aspire: A Platform for Reusable Infrastructure (David Fowler) - For once, I think Aspire is the perfect name because it's inspiring.

• How we ended up rewriting NuGet Restore in .NET 9 - .NET Blog (The NuGet Team) - A very interesting article that explains how a tool that all .NET developers use got rewritten

• Porting Code with LLMs (Mark Heath) - It's always interesting to see how people use AI to help them do their work. Love it!

Podcasts

• Per Kops: Architecture of Ollama and Local LLMs - Episode 342 (Azure & DevOps Podcast) - An interesting discussion about Olama (local LLMs), .NET architecture, and Semantic Kernel.

• Vertical Slice Architecture with Jeremy Miller (.NET Rocks!) - This episode is about Vertical Slice Architecture, what it is, when it makes sense to use it, and some comparisons with the others that we know.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #642

This week, I explored posts about improving cache management for ASP.NET Core applications and understanding error handling in Blazor. These articles, along with others on AI model selection and development productivity, offer valuable insights for developers.

Cloud

• Hello HybridCache! Streamlining Cache Management for ASP.NET Core Applications - .NET Blog - Already GA! Wow, great library that really simplifies having the best cache experience possible.

Programming

• Blazor Basics: Handling Errors and Exception Logging (Claudio Bernasconi ) - This nice post explains the fundamentals about the errors with Blazor.

AI

• Selecting the right model for coding (Mark Downie) - Nice post that answers a question, that I'm sure many of us thought without really knowing the answer.

Miscellaneous

• Announcing Dapr AI Agents (Mark Fussell, Yaron Schneider, Roberto Rodriguez) - I like those tech savvy agent that knows about one thing. I f|l I can trust them more and it usually go faster.

• Mastering GitHub Copilot: When to use AI agent mode (Andrea Griffiths) - Using copilot the "good way" can and will definitely improve your productivity. This post helps you to get started

• Xbox + .NET Aspire: Transforming Local Development Practices (Craig Taylor) - Since I started using Aspire, I want to use it everywhere. Yes, it's that good and this story is just another proof.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank

Reading Notes #641

This week's reading notes cover an array of topics, from programming insights and AI advancements to cloud solutions and practical tips for developers. Explore the updates, tools, and advice that could inspire your next project!

prompt: Web dev in a D&D monsters card style

 

Suggestion of the week

• Profiles in Visual Studio Code - I used two profiles to control an extension. But after reading this, I may create more! I have so many ideas.

Cloud

• Hello HybridCache! Streamlining Cache Management for ASP.NET Core Applications - Already GA! Wow, a great library that simplifies have the best cache experience possible.

Programming

• Introducing support for SLNX, a new, simpler solution file format in the .NET CLI - The XML format for the solution file has been around but no it's supported everywhere. "dotnet sln migrate" to convert yours.

• .NET Aspire Integration Testing Quick Start (James Gould) - This is a nice post sharing tips and tricks about .NET and unit test.

AI

• Introducing Azure AI Foundry — Everything you need for AI development (Zachary-Cavanell) - Quick intro whatinis and how to get started. There is the video and transcript.

Miscellaneous

• The Principal Developer Advocate Paradox: Scaling Impact Without Burnout (Dewan Ahmed) - Yes, that's exactly that. I think all jobs have theirs completely, but the advocate is definitely one that is hard to understand and measure.

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

If you have interesting content, share it!

~Frank