McpServerDotnetFormat

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) stdio server for formatting .NET projects and files using the dotnet format CLI. This project enables agent-based tools (such as GitHub Copilot) to invoke formatting commands programmatically, supporting both local and containerized workflows.

Features

• Exposes formatting commands for .NET projects and files via MCP stdio server.
• Supports formatting entire projects, individual files, or directories.
• Enforces .editorconfig, StyleCop, and analyzer rules.
• Can be run locally or as a Docker container.

Limitations

• JetBrains Rider is not getting shell commends from output, it expects tool to format it

TODO

• We can change from returning the tool to actually running the tool. In order to do that we need:
  • Run tool instead of returning command to the agent.
  • For docker scenario, provide way to mount repository root to the docker
  • Also install dotnet-format into the docker file, so it will work out of the box

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• .NET 9.0 SDK (see global.json for the pinned version)
• Docker (for containerized usage)

Building the Project

dotnet build

Running the MCP Server (Stdio)

You can run the server directly using the following configuration in your mcp.json:

"dotnet-format": {
    "type": "stdio",
    "command": "dotnet",
    "args": [
        "run",
        "--project",
        "/PATH/mcp-server-dotnet-format/src/McpServerDotnetFormat/McpServerDotnetFormat.csproj"
    ]
}

This will start the MCP stdio server, ready to accept formatting requests.

Publishing a Docker Image

To build and publish the Docker image for multiple platforms:

dotnet publish /t:PublishContainer src/McpServerDotnetFormat/McpServerDotnetFormat.csproj

Example output:

Restore complete (0.2s)
  McpServerDotnetFormat succeeded (6.6s) → src/McpServerDotnetFormat/bin/Release/net9.0/linux-arm64/publish/
  McpServerDotnetFormat succeeded (7.2s) → src/McpServerDotnetFormat/bin/Release/net9.0/linux-x64/publish/
  McpServerDotnetFormat succeeded (0.3s) → src/McpServerDotnetFormat/bin/Release/net9.0/publish/

Build succeeded in 9.1s

The resulting Docker image can be pushed to your registry (e.g., ghisguth/mcp-server-dotnet-format:latest).

Running via Docker

You can run the server in a container using the following configuration:

"dotnet-format-docker": {
    "command": "docker",
    "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "ghisguth/mcp-server-dotnet-format:latest"
    ],
    "env": {}
}

This will start the MCP server inside a Docker container, exposing the same stdio interface.

Example Usage

• Format an entire project:

  dotnet format /path/to/YourProject.csproj
  

• Format a specific file:

  dotnet format /path/to/YourProject.csproj --include path/to/YourFile.cs
  

Development

• Main code: src/McpServerDotnetFormat/
• Tests: src/McpServerDotnetFormat.Tests/
• Style and analyzer rules are enforced via .editorconfig and StyleCop.

License

See LICENSE for details.

For more details, see the source code and configuration files in the repository.