How Amazon Q Developer transforms .NET applications
Note
Transforming .NET applications with Amazon Q in the IDE is in preview, and is subject to change.
Review the following sections for details about how .NET transformation with Amazon Q Developer works.
Analyzing your application and generating a transformation plan
Before a transformation begins, Amazon Q builds your code locally to ensure it’s buildable and configured correctly for transformation. Amazon Q then uploads your code to a secure and encrypted build environment on AWS, analyzes your codebase, and determines the necessary updates to port your application.
During this analysis, Amazon Q divides your .NET solution or project into code groups. A code group is a project and all its dependencies that together generate a buildable unit of code such as a dynamic link library (DLL) or an executable. Even if you didn’t select all project dependencies to be transformed, Amazon Q determines the dependencies needed to build your selected projects and transforms them too, so that your transformed application will be buildable and ready for use.
After analyzing your code, Amazon Q generates a transformation plan that outlines the proposed changes that it will make, including a list of code groups and their dependencies that will be transformed.
Transforming your application
To start the transformation, Amazon Q builds your code again in the secure build environment to ensure it’s buildable remotely. Amazon Q then begins porting your application. It works from the bottom up, starting with the lowest level dependency. If Amazon Q runs into an issue with porting a dependency, it stops the transformation and provides information about what caused the error.
The transformation includes the following updates to your application:
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Replacing outdated C# versions of code with Linux-compatible C# versions
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Upgrading .NET Framework to cross-platform .NET, including:
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Identifying and iteratively replacing packages, libraries, and APIs
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Upgrading and replacing NuGet packages and APIs
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Transitioning to cross-platform runtime
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Setting up middleware and updating runtime configurations
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Replacing private or third-party packages
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Handling IIS and WCF components
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Debugging build errors
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Rewriting code for Linux compatibility, including refactoring and rewriting deprecated and inefficient code to port existing code
Reviewing transformation summary and accepting changes
After the transformation is complete, Amazon Q provides a transformation summary with information about the proposed updates it made to your application, including the number of files changed, packages updated, and APIs changed. It flags any unsuccessful transformations, including affected files or portions of files and the errors encountered during an attempted build. You can also view a build summary with build logs to learn more about what changes were made.
The transformation summary also provides a Linux porting status, which indicates whether or not additional user input is needed to make the application Linux compatible. If any of the items in a code group require input from you, you download a Linux readiness report that contains Windows-specific considerations that Amazon Q could not address at build time. If input is needed for any code groups or files, review the report for details about what type of change still needs to be made and, if applicable, for recommendations for how to update your code. These changes must be made manually before your application can be run on Linux.
You can review the proposed changes Amazon Q made in a diff view before accepting them as in-place updates to your files. After updating your files and addressing any items in the Linux readiness report, your application is ready to run on cross-platform .NET.
