binlogtool 1.0.33

binlogtool

Command-line utilities for MSBuild binary logs (*.binlog), from the MSBuild Structured Log Viewer project.

Installation

dotnet tool install -g binlogtool

Update to the latest version:

dotnet tool update -g binlogtool

Alternatively, the binlogtoolexe package contains the same tool as a standalone self-contained BinlogTool.exe for Windows x64 that doesn't require the .NET SDK.

Commands

Run binlogtool <command> --help for the full help of any command.

stats

binlogtool stats input.binlog [--html [report.html]] [--text [report.txt]] [--strings]

Analyzes which record types, strings, name-value lists and blobs take up space in the binlog — think WinDirStat for binlog size. Buckets are sorted by total size and drill down into subcategories, with sample record texts drawn from the top of each bucket and from each size percentile (p90, p80, …) so you can see what the bytes actually are.

• With no options, prints a plain text report to stdout. The format is designed to be friendly to both humans and LLMs — point an AI agent at it and ask what makes the binlog large.
• --html [path] writes a standalone self-contained HTML report with charts and interactive drill-down. The path is optional and defaults to <input>.stats.html.
• --text [path] writes the text report to a file instead of stdout. The path is optional and defaults to <input>.stats.txt.
• --strings additionally collects and includes the largest strings from the string table (uses more memory on large binlogs).

binlogtool stats msbuild.binlog
binlogtool stats msbuild.binlog --html --text
binlogtool stats msbuild.binlog --html report.html --strings

search

binlogtool search *.binlog <search string>

Searches one or more binlogs and prints matching nodes. The first argument can be a file, a directory, or a wildcard pattern (subdirectories are searched recursively); the rest of the command line is the search query. Supports the same search syntax as the Structured Log Viewer, e.g. $error, $task csc, under(), project() etc.

binlogtool search msbuild.binlog $error
binlogtool search C:\logs CS8600

redact

binlogtool redact --input:path -p:secret1 -p:secret2 [--recurse] [--in-place]

Redacts secrets from binlogs: explicitly provided strings (-p:) as well as autodetected common credential patterns and usernames. Files embedded in the binlog are processed too. Unless --in-place is specified, writes the result to <input>.redacted.binlog.

• --input — binlog file or directory to redact. Defaults to the current working directory.
• -p — a secret string to redact. Can be specified multiple times.
• --recurse — recurse into subdirectories when the input is a directory.
• --in-place — overwrite the input logs instead of writing new ones with a suffix.

savefiles

binlogtool savefiles input.binlog output_path

Saves all files embedded in the binlog (project files, imported targets, response files, source-generated files, etc.) into the output directory.

reconstruct

binlogtool reconstruct input.binlog output_path

Like savefiles, but reconstructs the original source tree layout from the files embedded in the binlog.

savestrings

binlogtool savestrings input.binlog output.txt

Saves the deduplicated string table of the binlog into a text file, sorted. Useful for diffing binlogs or inspecting what text data a binlog contains (see also stats --strings for just the largest strings).

listtools

binlogtool listtools input.binlog

Prints the MSBuild version, the source commit (when available) and the set of tools, compilers and task assemblies invoked during the build.

listnuget

binlogtool listnuget input.binlog [output_path]

Lists the NuGet packages referenced in the binlog. Prints to stdout or writes to the optional output file.

listproperties

binlogtool listproperties input.binlog

Prints all Name=Value property combinations observed in project evaluations and project builds, sorted by property name.

compilerinvocations

binlogtool compilerinvocations input.binlog [output_path]

Lists the compiler invocations (command lines) in the binlog. Prints to stdout or writes to the optional output file.

doublewrites

binlogtool doublewrites input.binlog [output_path]

Reports files that were written more than once during the build (a common source of race conditions and non-deterministic builds), together with the sources they were copied from.

dumprecords

binlogtool dumprecords [path] [--include-total] [--include-rollup] [--exclude-details]

Low-level dump of the raw records contained in binlogs, for debugging the binlog format itself. path is a binlog file or directory and defaults to the current working directory.

• --include-total — include the total record count.
• --include-rollup — include a per-record-type rollup (count and average size).
• --exclude-details — exclude the per-record listing.

For a higher-level, size-oriented view see the stats command.

Links

• MSBuild Structured Log Viewer
• GitHub repository