Installation

Prerequisites

.NET 8.0 or .NET 10.0 SDK
A project that uses Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection

1. Add the NuGet Package

dotnet add package Specular

Or add it manually to your .csproj:

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Specular" />
</ItemGroup>

Central Package Management: If your solution uses Directory.Packages.props, add the version there and reference it without a version attribute in the project file:

<PackageVersion Include="Specular" Version="x.y.z" />

2. No Attribute to Apply

There is nothing to wire up by hand. When the generator runs it stamps your assembly with [assembly: SpecularHashAttribute("<hash>")] automatically (the hash drives cross-assembly cache invalidation) and emits the SpecularProvider class you scan through. You never write this attribute yourself.

Libraries that are only scanned — and never call ISpecularProvider themselves — can opt out of emitting their own provider by setting <SpecularEmitProvider>false</SpecularEmitProvider> in the project file. Application and entry projects emit a provider by default.

3. Build the Project

dotnet build

The Roslyn incremental source generator runs automatically during the build. After a successful build, the generated provider appears under your project’s obj/ folder:

obj/
  Debug/
    net8.0/
      generated/
        Specular.Analyzers/
          Specular.Analyzers.SpecularProviderGenerator/
            SpecularProvider.g.cs

You can inspect SpecularProvider.g.cs to see exactly what the generator produced — a concrete class implementing ISpecularProvider whose methods return pre-computed arrays of types.

4. Verify the Setup

Add a quick check to confirm the provider resolves:

var provider = SpecularProvider.Instance;
Console.WriteLine(provider.GetType().FullName); // should print "SpecularProvider"

No Additional Configuration

That’s it. The generator runs automatically on every build. There are no config files and no additional packages to reference. The only optional MSBuild knobs are <SpecularEmitProvider> (see step 2) for libraries that should not emit their own provider, and <SpecularGenerateDiagnostics>false</SpecularGenerateDiagnostics> to opt out of the scan report (on by default). The SpecularProvider.ctpjson cross-assembly cache file is written to obj/ alongside the generated source and is picked up automatically by downstream assemblies.

Next Steps

Quickstart — write your first selector and register services