NetSnap

NetSnap is a CLI tool designed for creating detailed snapshots of the structure and content of .NET projects. It simplifies project analysis and documentation by capturing all relevant files and their contents, while ignoring unnecessary files and directories.

Features

• Scans a .NET project directory for files and captures their content.
• Automatically ignores common build artifacts (bin, obj) and irrelevant files (.gitignore, images, etc.).
• Supports customizable output file paths.
• Provides clear, human-readable snapshots for easy sharing or documentation.
• Optional output splitting (--split) to avoid huge snapshot files.
• Optional per-csproj snapshots (--by-csproj) to generate one file per project.

Installation

Install the NetSnap tool globally using the .NET CLI:

dotnet tool install --global NetSnap

Update to the latest version:

dotnet tool update --global NetSnap

After installation, the command will be available as:

netsnap

Usage

netsnap [sourcePath] [outputPathOrDir] [--split <size>] [--by-csproj]

Arguments

• sourcePath (optional)

  Directory to scan. If omitted, uses the current directory (Release) or the project directory (Debug).

• outputPathOrDir (optional)

  Where to write the snapshot(s).

  • If it looks like a file path (has an extension), NetSnap writes to that file (default: snapshot.txt inside sourcePath).
  • If it looks like a directory (exists as a directory, or has no extension), NetSnap writes results into that directory.

Options

• --split <size>

  Split output into multiple files with a maximum size.

  Supported formats:

  • Raw bytes: 500000
  • With suffix: 500KB, 5MB, 1GB (case-insensitive)

  Notes:

  • When splitting a single output file, NetSnap writes: snapshot.txt, snapshot_2.txt, snapshot_3.txt, ...
  • Splitting is based on UTF-8 byte size.

• --by-csproj

  Generate separate output per *.csproj.

  • Output file names are derived from the .csproj file name.
  • Example: MyProject.csproj → MyProject.txt
  • If used together with --split, large projects produce: MyProject.txt, MyProject_2.txt, MyProject_3.txt, ...

• --help, -h, /?

  Show help.

Examples

Create a single snapshot file (default output is snapshot.txt in the source folder):

netsnap .

Create a single snapshot file at a custom path:

netsnap . .\snapshot.txt

Split a single snapshot into chunks of up to 5MB:

netsnap . .\snapshot.txt --split 5MB

Create one snapshot per .csproj in an output folder:

netsnap . .\out --by-csproj

Create one snapshot per .csproj and split each project snapshot into 2MB chunks:

netsnap . .\out --by-csproj --split 2MB

Output Format

The output is a human-readable text file with:

• project headers per .csproj
• file paths (relative to sourcePath)
• file contents

Example (simplified):

Project Snapshot:

### Project: MyProject.csproj ###

File: src/Program.cs
-------- File Content --------
...
------------------------------

### End of Project: MyProject.csproj ###

Ignored Content

NetSnap intentionally skips:

• directories: bin, obj, and hidden folders (starting with .)
• files: .gitattributes, .gitignore, and the default output file name snapshot.txt
• extensions: .img, .jpeg, .webp

To avoid recursively capturing generated snapshots, NetSnap also ignores the output file itself and split parts:

• snapshot.txt
• snapshot_2.txt, snapshot_3.txt, ...
• <Project>.txt, <Project>_2.txt, ... (when --by-csproj is used)

Development

Build

dotnet build -c Release

Run locally

dotnet run --project .\NetSnap\NetSnap.csproj -- . .\snapshot.txt

Tests

dotnet test

Notes

• Snapshots are written using UTF-8 (without BOM).
• Large file contents are streamed line-by-line to reduce memory pressure.
• If you commit generated snapshot files into the repository, consider adding them to .gitignore.

License

MIT.