| name | resolve-project-references |
| description | Guide for interpreting ResolveProjectReferences time in MSBuild performance summaries. Activate when ResolveProjectReferences appears as the most expensive target and developers are trying to optimize it directly. Explains that the reported time includes wait time for dependent project builds and is misleading. Guides users to focus on task self-time instead. Do not activate for general build performance -- use build-perf-diagnostics instead. |
| license | MIT |
Misleading ResolveProjectReferences Time
Prevent misguided optimization of ResolveProjectReferences by explaining that its reported time is wall-clock wait time, not CPU work.
When to Use
ResolveProjectReferences appears as the most expensive target in the Target Performance Summary- A developer is trying to optimize
ResolveProjectReferences directly
- Build performance analysis shows a single target consuming 50-80% of total build time
When Not to Use
- General build performance optimization (use
build-perf-diagnostics instead)
- The bottleneck is clearly a different target (e.g.,
Csc, ResolveAssemblyReference)
- The user has not yet captured a binlog or performance summary
Inputs
| Input | Required | Description |
|---|
| Build log or binlog | Yes | A diagnostic build log or binlog containing the Target Performance Summary |
Workflow
Step 1: Confirm the misleading symptom
Verify that ResolveProjectReferences appears as the top target in the Target Performance Summary. This is the misleading metric.
Step 2: Explain why it is misleading
The reported time includes waiting for dependent projects to build while the MSBuild node is yielded (see dotnet/msbuild#3135). During this wait, the node may be doing useful work on other projects. The target itself does very little work.
Step 3: Redirect to task self-time
Use the Task Performance Summary to identify the real bottleneck.
Primary: binlog MCP (preferred)
Use the binlog MCP server expensive_tasks tool to get task self-time rankings directly from the binlog.
Fallback: text-log replay (when MCP is unavailable)
dotnet msbuild build.binlog -noconlog -fl "-flp:v=diag;logfile=full.log;performancesummary"
grep "Task Performance Summary" -A 50 full.log
Focus on self-time of actual tasks:
- Csc: see
build-perf-diagnostics skill (Section 2: Roslyn Analyzers)
- ResolveAssemblyReference: see
build-perf-diagnostics skill (Section 1: RAR)
- Copy: see
build-perf-diagnostics skill (Section 4: File I/O)
- Serialization bottlenecks: see
build-parallelism skill
Validation
