.NET

A few important details about the Microsoft .NET platform.

Versions

We use each of these versions of .NET for specific purposes:

• .NET Framework 4.8
• .NET Standard 2.0
• .NET 10 (from version 26.5; earlier versions targeted .NET 9)

Dependencies

.NET Framework and .NET Core dependencies can be summarized this way:

• You can reference a .NET Standard assembly from .NET Framework and from .NET Core.
• You cannot reference a .NET Core assembly from .NET Framework.
• You can reference a .NET Framework assembly from .NET Core.

Note

.NET Framework does not support .NET Standard 2.1 and our .NET Framework assemblies need to reference .NET Standard assemblies. Therefore, we target .NET Standard 2.0 in a library that needs to be used by both .NET Framework and .NET Core.

Development tools

• VS Code with the C# Dev Kit extension is the recommended editor for all development work: .NET, React, and the documentation. See VS Code for the extensions.
• The exception is the CMDS V4 codebase, which targets .NET Framework 4.8 and builds ASP.NET Web Forms projects. The C# Dev Kit does not build those, so V4 work needs Visual Studio.