Unable to Run DevSkim VS Code Plugin with .NET 6 in ARM64 Dev Containers

[timloh-enjinstarter]

Describe the bug Unable to run DevSkim VS Code plugin when only have .NET SDK 6 installed

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Run mcr.microsoft.com/devcontainers/dotnet:6.0 using Dev Containers with ms-cst-e.vscode-devskim extension specified in devcontainer.json:

   "extensions": [
       "ms-cst-e.vscode-devskim"
   ]

2. See error

Expected behavior Should be able to run with only .NET 6 installed without the need to install .NET 7

Screenshots

Versions(please complete the following information):

• Host OS: macOS 12.6.6
• Host Architecture: M1
• Devskim Version 1.0.8
• Dev Containers 0.295.0
• Container OS: Debian bullseye
• Container Architecture: arm64

[gfs]

~Hello, is this running in codespaces?~

I can't reproduce this by installing the latest version of the extension from the store on a local device. Tested on an ARM64 Mac.

The language server for the VS Code plug-in requires .NET 7.0 - however the extension itself manages the runtime it needs automatically with the .NET Install Tool for extensions. It is not intended to rely on the sdk that happens to be installed in the broader OS.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/additional-tools/vscode-dotnet-runtime

[gfs]

Ah I see now you mentioned "dev containers". I haven't used that before, but it looks to me like the .NET Acquire extension I mentioned above isn't being brought in.

As a first step, you could try to explicitly specify it in your manifest.

Failing that, you could use the .net 7.0 base.

In order to make the extension function with .net 6.0 we would have to package both a .net 6 and a .net 7 build in the VSIX for the extension - but this would never be touched by the mainline scenario of using the package in a local vs code instance, and would require extra reworking to run the appropriate version based on what version of .net we detect as present.

We are not currently planning to add a .NET 6.0 build in the package, as it would cause approximately a doubling of the package size.

[timloh-enjinstarter]

Thank you for your response, I see that .NET Install Tool for Extension Authors extension is already installed inside Dev Container together with DevSkim extension as shown in following screenshot.

Do you mean manually edit manifest of DevSkim extension to explicitly specify .NET Install Tool for Extension Authors extension as dependency?

[gfs]

Thanks for the extra info. I believe since you do see install tool I wouldn't expect explicitly specifying it to change the behavior.

I suspect using a .net 7.0 image would work as a workaround here if one is available - and should still allow you to build .NET 6.0 projects. However, it looks like I'll have to test myself with dev container, as I wouldn't expect the mere presence of a .net 6.0 sdk to cause the extension to not work - the install tool extension is supposed to ensure that the user doesn't have to have the sdk installed in order to use the devskim extension.

[gfs]

I believe I've have a fix for this with #559.

[timloh-enjinstarter]

Thanks @gfs for the fix, version 1.0.11 has been tested working with only .NET 6 installed in dev container.