SharpDetect 2.0.0-prerelease-04

SharpDetect

A work-in-progress, experimental dynamic analysis for .NET programs.

Features

🔒 Deadlock Detection

.NET programs can be analyzed for deadlocks using DeadlockPlugin. After analysis terminates, it generates a report which contains affected threads, stack traces and more runtime details.

Monitored synchronization primitives:

• System.Threading.Monitor
  • Supported operations: Enter, TryEnter, Exit, Wait, PulseOne, PulseAll.
• System.Threading.Lock (.NET 9+)
  • Supported operations: Enter, TryEnter, Exit, EnterScope.
• System.Threading.Thread
  • Supported operations: Join.

Installation

SharpDetect is packed and published as a .NET Tool on NuGet. You can install it using one of the following commands:

dotnet tool install --global SharpDetect # Latest stable release
dotnet tool install --global SharpDetect --prerelease # Latest preview (prerelease)

Quick Start

1. Prepare Program to Analyze

Create and build a new console .NET application with the following code:

var a = new object();
var b = new object();

new Thread(() => { while (true) lock (a) lock (b) { } }) { IsBackground = true }.Start();
new Thread(() => { while (true) lock (b) lock (a) { } }) { IsBackground = true }.Start();

Thread.Sleep(5000);

2. Create Analysis Configuration File

Create a configuration file that describes the analysis to be performed. The easiest way to create this file is to use the sharpdetect init command:

sharpdetect init \
  --plugin "SharpDetect.Plugins.Deadlock.DeadlockPlugin" \
  --target "<path/to/YourExecutableDotNetAssembly.dll>" \
  --output "AnalysisConfiguration.json"

Note: Make sure to replace <path/to/YourExecutableDotNetAssembly.dll> with the actual path to the .NET assembly that you want to analyze.

3. Run Analysis

When running analysis, SharpDetect will use the configuration specified in the file from previous step. Start analysis using the sharpdetect run command:

sharpdetect run AnalysisConfiguration.json

Shortly after the deadlock occurs, you should see a log message similar to this:

warn: SharpDetect.Core.Plugins.PluginBase[0]
     [PID=20611] Deadlock detected (affects 2 threads).

Finally when target program terminates, you should see a log message indicating that the report has been generated:

Report stored to file: /home/user/Workspace/SharpDetect_Report_2025-12-23T09:58:28.5087901.html.

Reports are self-contained HTML files that can be opened in any modern web browser.

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• .NET 10 SDK
• C++20 compiler with CMake (clang on Linux, MSVC on Windows)
• Other platform-specific dependencies as specified by Native AOT deployment

Build Instructions

git clone https://github.com/acizmarik/sharpdetect.git
cd sharpdetect
git submodule update --init --recursive

cd src
dotnet tool restore
dotnet cake

Platform Support

SharpDetect supports modern .NET SDKs that are still under active support by .NET team (versions 8, 9 and 10). Supported platforms are Windows and Linux on x64 architecture.

Acknowledgments

SharpDetect is built with the help of numerous open-source libraries and components. For detailed licensing information and full copyright notices, please see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 license.