BinlogInsights

MSBuild binary log (.binlog) analysis tools — a CLI and an MCP server for AI-assisted build investigation.

Why?

MSBuild binary logs capture everything about a build: properties, items, imports, resolved packages, compiler invocations, targets, tasks, and timing. But navigating a binlog is tedious — they can be huge, deeply nested, and full of irrelevant noise.

BinlogInsights exposes structured queries over binlogs through two interfaces:

The MCP server is particularly powerful: point Copilot at a failing binlog and let it drive the investigation — drilling from overview → errors → properties → imports → NuGet diagnostics automatically, following the same workflow a build engineer would.

Features

26 MCP Tools / 13 CLI Commands

Build investigation:

• overview — Build status, duration, project count, top-level results
• errors / warnings — Diagnostics with project, file, line info
• properties — MSBuild property values (with optional filter)
• imports — Full import chain for a project
• items — Item groups (PackageReference, Compile, etc.)
• nuget — NuGet restore diagnostics
• compiler — Full compiler command line (references, defines, flags)
• search — Free-text search across all build messages
• projects — Project list with status and duration
• preprocess — Effective project XML after all imports
• compare — Diff two binlogs: properties, packages, references

Performance analysis (MCP only):

• expensive_projects / project_target_times — Slowest projects and their target breakdown
• expensive_targets / search_targets / project_targets — Target-level timing
• expensive_tasks / search_tasks / tasks_in_target / task_details — Task-level timing
• expensive_analyzers — Roslyn analyzer performance

Evaluation & files (MCP only):

• evaluations / evaluation_properties / evaluation_global_properties — Property/item resolution phase
• list_files / get_file — Access source files embedded in the binlog

Installation

Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK or later

Install the MCP server (recommended)

dotnet tool install -g BinlogInsights.Mcp

Install the CLI

dotnet tool install -g BinlogInsights

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/SergeyTeplyakov/BinlogInsights.git
cd BinlogInsights/src
dotnet build
# Install the MCP server as a global tool:
./install.ps1

Setup for VS Code / Copilot

Add the MCP server to your workspace. Create .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "binlog-insights": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "binlog-insights-mcp",
      "args": []
    }
  }
}