.NET documentation

What it is

The .NET documentation on Microsoft Learn is the official home for everything about the modern, cross-platform .NET platform. It covers installing the SDK, the dotnet command line, project files and NuGet, the C# language, the base class libraries, LINQ, asynchronous programming, testing, diagnostics, containers and deployment. ASP.NET Core, EF Core and Blazor have their own sections that link from here.

What is in it

• Get started and fundamentals: what .NET is, how the SDK and runtimes differ, and the release and support policy (even-numbered releases are long term support for three years, odd-numbered ones are standard term support for two).
• The dotnet CLI: a reference page for every command, from dotnet new and dotnet build to dotnet test, dotnet publish and the file-based dotnet run app.cs added in .NET 10.
• The C# guide: a language tour, the programming guide, the language reference and a "What's new" page for each version. C# 14 ships with .NET 10.
• Core libraries: collections, LINQ, dates and times, JSON with System.Text.Json, HttpClient and IHttpClientFactory, dependency injection, configuration, logging and the generic host.
• Testing and diagnostics: unit testing with xUnit, NUnit and MSTest, plus metrics, tracing and debugging tools.
• Deployment: publishing, self-contained apps, and building container images with dotnet publish.

Is it worth your time?

Yes. Most .NET tutorials on the internet are out of date within a year or two, and many still teach .NET Framework or the old Startup.cs style. These docs are updated with each release, show which version each feature arrived in, and use a version picker on pages that differ between releases. When a blog post and the docs disagree, trust the docs.

How to use it

Do not read it front to back. Start with the C# tour and the CLI overview, then read the page for whatever you are using that week: LINQ when you write queries, the asynchronous programming guide when you meet async and await, the dependency injection pages when you start ASP.NET Core. Check the "What's new" page for each new release so you know what changed.

Prerequisites

None to begin with. Some pages assume you can already program, so pair it with the Microsoft Learn C# path if you are new to coding.

Free or paid?

Free. The docs are open source on GitHub and anyone can suggest a fix.

What you can do after it

Find the right answer to a .NET question quickly, and know whether advice you read elsewhere is current.