Maui Hot Reload Diagnostics

What it does

When your agent uses it

• : hot reload not working
• XAML hot reload
• UI not updating
• Hot reload troubleshooting

Example prompts

• “hot reload not working”
• “XAML hot reload”
• “C hot reload”
• “/maui-hot-reload-diagnostics”

Requirements

• A Bash shell

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Identify what's failing: XAML Hot Reload (.xaml changes) vs C# Hot Reload (.cs changes)
2. 2Check run configuration: Must be Debug config, started with F5/debugger attached
3. 3Save file and re-execute code path: C# changes require re-triggering the code
4. 4Check Hot Reload output: View > Output > "Hot Reload" (VS) or "C# Hot Reload" (VS Code)

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 79bb4bf. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Ships 1 file in scripts/ (Shell), which the agent can run.

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • dotnet

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Maui Hot Reload Diagnostics loads about 1.3k tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.8k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 167 tokens; SKILL.md has 489 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~167

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1.3k

With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them

~2.8k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); the scripts in this folder are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from davidortinau/maui-skills at commit 79bb4bf, republished under its MIT licence (© davidortinau). 489 words, ~1,324 tokens.

name

maui-hot-reload-diagnostics

description

Diagnose and troubleshoot .NET MAUI Hot Reload issues (C# Hot Reload, XAML Hot Reload, Blazor Hybrid). Covers all UI approaches (XAML, MauiReactor, C# Markup, Blazor Hybrid), Visual Studio, VS Code, environment variables, encoding requirements, and MetadataUpdateHandler. USE FOR: "hot reload not working", "XAML hot reload", "C# hot reload", "UI not updating", "hot reload troubleshooting", "MetadataUpdateHandler", "hot reload Blazor Hybrid", "hot reload VS Code", "DOTNET_WATCH". DO NOT USE FOR: general build errors (not hot reload related), app lifecycle events (use maui-app-lifecycle), or performance profiling (use maui-performance).

# Check if file has BOM (should show "UTF-8 Unicode (with BOM)")
file -I *.cs

# Find files without BOM
find . -name "*.cs" -exec sh -c 'head -c 3 "$1" | od -An -tx1 | grep -q "ef bb bf" || echo "$1"' _ {} \;

# Fix: convert to UTF-8 with BOM
sed -i '1s/^\(\xef\xbb\xbf\)\?/\xef\xbb\xbf/' file.cs
# Or in VS Code: Open file > Save with Encoding > UTF-8 with BOM

<!-- ✅ Correct — feature switch in .csproj -->
<ItemGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Debug'">
  <RuntimeHostConfigurationOption Include="MauiReactor.HotReload" Value="true" Trim="false" />
</ItemGroup>

// ❌ Wrong — v2 API, remove for v3+
.EnableMauiReactorHotReload()

© davidortinau, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 2 other files (scripts, references) in plugins/maui-skills/skills/maui-hot-reload-diagnostics of davidortinau/maui-skills.

• SKILL.md
• references/hot-reload-setup.md
• scripts/diagnose-hot-reload.sh

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 79bb4bf