template-discovery

Describe your project in natural language, such as "web API with auth" or "console app", and the intent mapping resolves it to template short names like webapi or console. The recommendation is then confirmed with dotnet new search and dotnet new list.

Run dotnet new <template> --help to see full parameter details including names, types, defaults, and allowed values. Parameter names vary by template, for example --auth versus --Authentication, so always confirm with the help output.

Yes, use dotnet new <template> --name MyApp --dry-run to show the files and directories a template would create without writing anything. If the dry-run fails transiently, retry once or fall back to a representative structure description.

Templates such as maui, winui3, aspire-starter, func, and orleans are not in a default SDK install. They require a workload via dotnet workload install or an additional template package via dotnet new install before they appear.

The template engine uses a global mutex, so concurrent dotnet new invocations can produce transient mutex or persistence errors with empty output. Run commands sequentially, retry once, and fall back to the intent mapping if the failure persists.

Do not use it to actually create projects, author custom templates, or produce detailed side-by-side comparisons. Route those tasks to the template-instantiation, template-authoring, or template-comparison skills instead.