Roslyn syntax tree visualizer in Rider

Abstract

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a Roslyn Syntax Tree Vi-sualizer for JetBrains Rider — a tool window that displays an interactive abstract syntax tree of C# source files inside the IDE, targeting developers who write Roslyn analysers and source generators. A competitive analysis of five existing tools, a developer survey, and a hands-on development session identified feature gaps and workflow pain points. The findings were formalised into prioritised user stories and system requirements that guided the implementation and design of the tool. The visualizer is built on Rider’s architecture and uses a custom incremental tree update algorithm to overcome the absence of built-in tree diffs in the Roslyn API. Performance benchmarks show that the Rider visualizer is on average 74% faster than Visual Studio’s Syntax Visualizer. Correctness is verified by integration tests validated against gold files. The tool has been merged and released as a production feature in Rider 2025.1.