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Misleading ResolveProjectReferences Time · dotnet | DecimalAI

codingby dotnet

Misleading ResolveProjectReferences Time

dotnet/resolve-project-references

Source dotnet/skills ↗License MIT

Guide for interpreting ResolveProjectReferences time in MSBuild performance summaries.

SkillScore91Maintained

Automatic

Coding pack

Last verified 8/9/2026

What it changes

Passed 19 of 21 test cases with the skill, and 10 of 21 without it.

Without skill45%

With skill91%

Checks it passed that the model alone missed

Explains that target summary duration includes idle wait time during dependency builds.
Recommends using the binlog MCP expensive_tasks tool to retrieve task self-times directly.
Directs extracting the Task Performance Summary section from the resulting log using grep.

and 7 more in the full report

10 fixed10 passed either way2 still failing0 broke

Pass-rate lift: +45 pp
Tokens: -24%
Agent turns: 0%
Response time: -46%

Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/9/2026v120 of 22 cases passed with skill · 21 comparable

Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.

Use this skill

Save it into your project's skills folder. Claude Code picks it up in its next session.

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o .claude/skills/dotnet-resolve-project-references/SKILL.md https://app.decimal.ai/s/dotnet-resolve-project-references/SKILL.md

Want it pinned and updatable? pip install "decimalai>=0.15", then decimalai skills add dotnet-resolve-project-references, and start Claude Code with claude --plugin-dir "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)/.agents"

1 · One-time — install the CLI (docs ↗)

pip install "decimalai>=0.15"

2 · Get the skill — writes .agents/skills/dotnet-resolve-project-references/ and pins it in .decimal/skills.lock

decimalai skills add dotnet-resolve-project-references

No CLI? Get the same file — curl · raw file

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o .claude/skills/dotnet-resolve-project-references/SKILL.md https://app.decimal.ai/s/dotnet-resolve-project-references/SKILL.md

Raw file: /s/dotnet-resolve-project-references/SKILL.md ↗ · machine-readable summary at /s/dotnet-resolve-project-references.json ↗

Safety checks: 3 of 3 passed

Code scan CleanIntent PassedContent Clean

See it in action

One of 9 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.

1 of 9

Prompt

When extracting the Task Performance Summary from a diagnostic MSBuild text log using standard Unix command-line utilities, how many lines of context following the section header should be extracted to capture the full task ranking table?

What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked	Without skill	With skill
Recommends using grep with a trailing context window of 50 lines after matching Task Performance Summary.	Missed	Passed

case-15 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/9/2026 · answers are capped and redacted

What's inside

The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.

SKILL.md59 linessingle file

Misleading ResolveProjectReferences Time

Prevent misguided optimization of ResolveProjectReferences by explaining that its reported time is wall-clock wait time, not CPU work.

When to Use

ResolveProjectReferences appears as the most expensive target in the Target Performance Summary
A developer is trying to optimize ResolveProjectReferences directly
Build performance analysis shows a single target consuming 50-80% of total build time

When Not to Use

General build performance optimization (use build-perf-diagnostics instead)
The bottleneck is clearly a different target (e.g., Csc, ResolveAssemblyReference)
The user has not yet captured a binlog or performance summary

Inputs

Input	Required	Description
Build log or binlog	Yes	A diagnostic build log or binlog containing the Target Performance Summary

Workflow

Step 1: Confirm the misleading symptom

Verify that ResolveProjectReferences appears as the top target in the Target Performance Summary. This is the misleading metric.

Step 2: Explain why it is misleading

The reported time includes waiting for dependent projects to build while the MSBuild node is yielded (see dotnet/msbuild#3135). During this wait, the node may be doing useful work on other projects. The target itself does very little work.

Step 3: Redirect to task self-time

Use the Task Performance Summary to identify the real bottleneck.

Primary: binlog MCP (preferred)

Use the binlog MCP server expensive_tasks tool to get task self-time rankings directly from the binlog.

Track record

Benchmark

19 / 21

test cases passed, vs 10 / 21 without

Adoption

Users: 0
Times used: 0

Safety and source details

SkillSafety

✓ 3 of 3 passed

Code scan15 of 15 checks clean

0 critical · 0 warning · 0 info — scanner v4 — 8/3/2026

View 15 scanner checks

live_secretremote_code_executionreverse_shelldata_exfiltrationssrf_metadataagent_snoopinganti_refusaldestructive_commandsobfuscated_unicodeunicode_homoglyphopaque_blobsuspicious_urltool_overreachtrigger_abuseprompt_injection_phrasing

IntentSafe

LLM judge · does the skill do what it claims

ContentClean

LLM judge · policy & harmful-content review

Source

Imported

dotnet / skills

plugins/dotnet-msbuild/skills/resolve-project-references/SKILL.md

View on GitHub ↗

License MITImported 8/3/2026Version v1

More skills from the same source and nearby in the registry, with their headline benchmark lift.

Ready to supercharge your AI agents?

See it in action

What's inside

Misleading ResolveProjectReferences Time

When to Use

When Not to Use

Inputs

Workflow

Step 1: Confirm the misleading symptom

Step 2: Explain why it is misleading

Step 3: Redirect to task self-time

Primary: binlog MCP (preferred)

Track record

Benchmark

Adoption

SkillSafety

Source

Related skills