How to watch for file changes “dotnet watch” with Visual Studio ASP.NET Core

Question

I am using Visual Studio with ASP.NET Core and run the web site using just F5 or Ctrl+F5 (not using command line directly). I would like to use the \"dotnet watch\" function

Answer 1

Just one little correction to @Flynn`s answer. You need to add an

"commandName": "Executable"

argument to the "Watch" profile. Also to define the urls you should define them not in the "Watch" profile, but in the profile with

"commandName": "Program"

argument (it is present in the default launchsettings.json, created by the Visual Studio project templates, so, your launchsettings.json finally looks like this:

"AnyTest.WebClient": {
  "commandName": "Project",
  "launchBrowser": true,
  "environmentVariables": {
    "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
  },
  "launchUrl": "",
  "applicationUrl": "https://localhost:44353;http://localhost:51895",
  "inspectUri": "{wsProtocol}://{url.hostname}:{url.port}/_framework/debug/ws-proxy?browser={browserInspectUri}"
},
"Watch": {
  "commandName": "Executable",
  "workingDirectory": "$(ProjectDir)",
  "executablePath": "dotnet.exe",
  "commandLineArgs": "watch run"
}

I kept the launchBrowser argument in the Program profile, but browser in not launched. But if this argument is present in the Executable profile, the browser is not launched too and I found no way to launch it automatically.