Porting a .NET application with Amazon Q Developer in Visual Studio - Amazon Q Developer
Step 1: PrerequisitesStep 2: Transform your application

Porting a .NET application with Amazon Q Developer in Visual Studio

Note

Transforming .NET applications with Amazon Q in the IDE is in preview, and is subject to change.

Complete these steps to port a Windows-based .NET application to a Linux-compatible cross-platform .NET application with Amazon Q Developer in Visual Studio.

Step 1: Prerequisites

Before you continue, make sure you’ve completed the steps in Set up Amazon Q in your IDE.

You must authenticate to Amazon Q Developer Pro with IAM Identity Center to access .NET transformations in Visual Studio. For more information, see Amazon Q Developer Pro tier.

Make sure that the following prerequisites for your application are met before you begin a .NET transformation job:

  • Your application contains only .NET projects written in C#.

  • Your application only has Microsoft-authored NuGet package dependencies

  • If your application is dependent on Internet Information Services (IIS), only default IIS configurations are used

  • Amazon Q will evaluate the type of the project you selected and its dependencies to create a code group. Your code group can only have the following project types:

    • Console application

    • Class library

    • Web API

    • WCF Service

    • Business logic layers of Model View Controller (MVC) and Single Page Application (SPA)

    • Test projects

Note

Amazon Q doesn’t support transforming UI layer components such as Razor views or WebForms ASPX files. If Amazon Q detects UI layer components in your solution or project, it will perform a partial transformation by excluding UI layer components, and you might need to refactor further to make your code buildable on the target .NET version.

Step 2: Transform your application

To transform your .NET solution or project, complete the following procedure:

  1. Open any C# based solution or project in Visual Studio that you want to transform.

  2. Open any C# code file in the editor.

  3. Choose Solution Explorer.

  4. From the Solution Explorer, right click a solution or project you want to transform, and then choose Port with Amazon Q Developer.

  5. The Port with Amazon Q Developer window appears.

    The solution or project you selected will be chosen in the Choose a solution or project to transform dropdown menu. You can expand the menu to choose a different solution or project to transform.

    In the Choose a .NET target dropdown menu, choose the .NET version you want to upgrade to.

  6. Choose Confirm to begin the transformation.

  7. Amazon Q begins transforming your code. You can view the transformation plan it generates for details about how it will transform your application.

    A Transformation Hub opens where you can monitor progress for the duration of the transformation. After Amazon Q has completed the Awaiting job transformation startup step, you can navigate away from the project or solution for the duration of the transformation.

  8. After the transformation is complete, navigate to the Transformation Hub and choose View diffs to review the proposed changes from Amazon Q in a diff view.

  9. Choose View code transformation summary for details about the changes Amazon Q made. You can also download the transformation summary by choosing Download summary as .md.

    If any of the items in the Code groups table require input under the Linux porting status, you must manually update some files to run your application on Linux.

    1. From the Actions dropdown menu, choose Download Linux readiness report.

    2. A .csv file opens with any changes to your project or solution that you must complete before your application is Linux compatible. It includes the project and file that need to be updated, a description of the item to be updated, and an explanation of the issue. Use the Recommendation column for ideas on how to address a Linux readiness issue.

  10. To update your files in place, choose Accept changes from the Actions dropdown menu.