What is a .editorconfig File?

An .editorconfig file helps developers define and maintain consistent coding styles between different editors and IDEs for files with different file extensions. These configuration files are easily readable and they work nicely with version control systems. An .editorconfig file defines various settings per file extension such as charsets and tabs vs spaces.

Scott Hanselman recently wrote a blog post about this file. You can also find out more from the official docs at editorconfig.org and the Visual Studio Docs which I recommend you read.

A Very Generic .editorconfig

I wrote a generic .editorconfig file supporting the following file types:

• C# - .cs, .csx, .cake
• Visual Basic - .vb
• Script - .sh, .ps1, .psm1, .bat, .cmd
• XML - .xml, .config, .props, .targets, .nuspec, .resx, .ruleset
• JSON - .json, .json5
• YAML - .yml, .yaml
• HTML - .htm, .html
• JavaScript - .js, .ts, .tsx, .vue
• CSS - .css, .sass, .scss, .less
• SVG - .svg
• Markdown - .md
• Visual Studio - .sln, .csproj, .vbproj, .vcxproj, .vcxproj.filters, .proj, .projitems, .shproj
• Makefile

Extensive code style settings for C# and VB.NET have been defined that require the latest C# features to be used. In addition, it sets various more advanced C# style settings. All C# related code styles are consistent with StyleCop's default styles. You can find our more about the C# code style settings from the official docs and also in Kent Boogaart's blog post.

How do I use It?

All you have to do is drop it into the root of your project. Then any time you open a file in Visual Studio, the .editorconfig file settings will be used to help format the document and also raise warnings if your code style and formatting does not conform.

For Visual Studio Code, you can install the EditorConfig for VS Code extension to get support.

Exciting July 2018 Update

I noticed that Microsoft silently released several new C# code style settings. I'm not sure when they were released but they're available in the current Visual Studio 15.7 update. The majority of them are to enforce the use of newer C# 7.3 syntax. I updated my generic .editorconfig file to add these new settings with C# 7.3 as the default.

Microsoft also updated their documentation for .editorconfig settings pertaining to .NET, so I added links to the docs site, so it's easy to see what each setting does and change it, if it's not to your liking. I've also included a undocumented dozen settings. There is an open issue on GitHub to get them documented, so it's easy to see what they do.

In addition, while I was working on this, I added support for a few more file extensions, including yaml (yml was already there), json5 (If you haven't heard of json5, check it out), cmd and bat (If you haven't switched to PowerShell yet, what are you waiting for).

Finally, Microsoft announced last week that the Visual Studio 15.8 update which is currently being released as preview 3 will automatically fix errors when you format the document using the CTRL+K followed by CTRL+D shortcut. This is huge! It means that you can drop a .editorconfig file in an existing codebase and with a few clicks or keyboard shortcuts (if that's how you roll) you can clean up your code base to use the latest C# 7.3 features and a code style that suits you.