Methodology

Slncs follows a few guiding principles intended to keep the experiment focused and the learning signal high.

Design Principles

Principle Explanation
Single-language authoring Keep solution graph definition in C# to minimize context switching.
Small surface area Provide only primitives (Project, Folder, File) at first. Avoid early complexity.
Deterministic output Stable ordering & de-duplication produce clean diffs & enable caching.
Transparent build pipeline Generated artifacts (.slnx, aggregator) are plain text, inspectable.
Opt-in convenience Aggregator project is optional; script alone defines the graph.
Reversible No irreversible transformation of underlying project files.
Avoid magic The DSL is a thin façade; no hidden reflection-based scanning beyond what the script directs.

Architectural Flow

C# Script (.slncs/.slncs.cs)
          │ Roslyn scripting host
          ▼
Generated .slnx (Solution XML) ──► Parse task (SlnxParse) ──► List<Project>
                                                       │
                                                       ▼
                                               MSBuild Restore+Build

Determinism Strategy

  • Key-based grouping: Folders (0), Projects (1), Files (2) sorted lexicographically.
  • Duplicate elimination on key collision.
  • Output encoding: UTF-8 with XML declaration.

Extensibility Approach

Before adding DSL verbs, prefer user-land extension methods:

public static class MySolutionExtensions
{
    public static SolutionBuilder AddBackend(this SolutionBuilder b)
        => b.Project("src/Core/Core.csproj")
             .Project("src/Api/Api.csproj");
}

This guards against premature expansion of core surface area.

Security Posture

  • Treat scripts as code (review path, no silent network I/O in core tasks).
  • The generator performs no dynamic code emission beyond Roslyn scripting of the user file.

Performance Notes

  • Overhead dominated by Roslyn scripting startup for small graphs.
  • Planned optimization: optional caching (hash of script -> .slnx) if unchanged.

Continue: Experimental Status

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