[Repo Assist] fix: resolve `(inheritdoc cref="...")` in XML doc tooltips for external assemblies by github-actions[bot] · Pull Request #1468 · ionide/FsAutoComplete

github-actions · 2026-02-24T21:32:27Z

🤖 This PR was created by Repo Assist, an automated AI assistant.

Problem

Members in external C# assemblies (e.g. StreamJsonRpc, many .NET libraries) use (inheritdoc cref="..."/) to reuse XML documentation from another member in the same assembly. FSAC was not following this indirection — the tooltip showed no documentation at all.

Example from the issue: StreamJsonRpc.JsonRpcTargetOptions.UseSingleObjectParameterDeserialization has only (inheritdoc cref="P:StreamJsonRpc.JsonRpcProxyOptions.ServerRequiresNamedArguments"/) in its XML doc. Previously, users saw a blank tooltip.

Root Cause

TipFormatter.tryGetXmlDocMember returned the raw XmlDocMember for a library member without checking whether it was an (inheritdoc) stub. The XmlDocMember class had no awareness of (inheritdoc) at all.

Fix

Two minimal, surgical changes to TipFormatter.fs:

XmlDocMember: Added an inheritDocCref let binding that reads the cref attribute of the first (inheritdoc) element (if present), exposed via a new InheritDocCref: string option member property.
tryGetXmlDocMember (FSharpXmlDoc.FromXmlFile branch): After resolving a member, if it has an InheritDocCref, attempt to look up the cref in the same assembly's XML doc map. If found, return the resolved member instead; if not found, fall back to the original (which may have empty content).

Scope & Trade-offs

Scenario	Behaviour
`(inheritdoc cref="..."/)` pointing to same assembly	✅ Resolved
`(inheritdoc cref="..."/)` pointing to a different assembly	⚠️ Falls back to empty (no regression; future work)
`(inheritdoc/)` without `cref`	⚠️ Falls back to empty (requires type hierarchy; future work)
Source-code docs (`FromXmlText`) with `(inheritdoc)`	⚠️ Falls back (FCS may or may not expand these)
Multi-level inheritdoc (A→B→C)	⚠️ Only one level resolved (sufficient for common cases)

Test Status

New unit tests added in TipFormatterTests.fs for inheritdoc parsing and graceful fallback.
All 8 TipFormatter unit tests pass (6 existing + 2 new).
Build: ✅ dotnet build src/FsAutoComplete.Core/FsAutoComplete.Core.fsproj — succeeded, 0 warnings.

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… assemblies When a member's XML doc contains only <inheritdoc cref="T:Ns.Type.Member"/>, look up the referenced member in the same assembly's XML doc file and use its documentation instead. This fixes missing tooltips for C# libraries (e.g. StreamJsonRpc) that use inheritdoc to reuse documentation. Only same-assembly cref resolution is implemented; cross-assembly inheritdoc and bare <inheritdoc/> (without a cref) are left as future work. Fixes #1415 Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

Krzysztof-Cieslak · 2026-02-24T23:28:35Z

/repo-assist can you add full integration tests based on hover testing please

Add a C# test library (InheritDocLib) with a DocumentedProvider class (fully documented members) and an InheritDocConsumer class whose members use <inheritdoc cref="..."/> to inherit the documentation. Four integration tests are added in InheritDocTooltipTests.fs: - Two baseline tests verify that directly-documented members show their own summaries via hover (sanity check, these pass before and after the fix). - Two regression tests verify that members using <inheritdoc cref="..."/> show the inherited summary via hover — these fail without the fix in TipFormatter.tryGetXmlDocMember and pass with it. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

github-actions · 2026-02-24T23:45:41Z

Commit pushed: ad0be13

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github-actions · 2026-02-24T23:45:42Z

🤖 This is an automated response from Repo Assist.

I've added full integration tests based on hover testing as requested. Here's a summary of what was added:

New Files

`test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/TestCases/InheritDocCref/`

A minimal C# test library (InheritDocLib) with:

DocumentedProvider — two fully-documented members (GetValue, GetNamed) with proper <summary>, (returns), and (param) tags.
InheritDocConsumer — two members that only have (inheritdoc cref="..."/) (no direct <summary>), pointing to the corresponding DocumentedProvider members.

The C# project is built with (GenerateDocumentationFile)true(/GenerateDocumentationFile) so the XML doc file is generated alongside the DLL — exactly the scenario the fix targets.

`test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/InheritDocTooltipTests.fs`

Four end-to-end tests using TextDocumentHover:

Test	Hover target	Expected result
`direct doc: GetValue`	`DocumentedProvider.GetValue()`	Contains `"Gets the documented value"` (baseline)
`direct doc: GetNamed`	`DocumentedProvider.GetNamed(...)`	Contains `"Gets a named result"` (baseline)
`inheritdoc cref: GetValue`	`InheritDocConsumer.GetValue()`	Contains `"Gets the documented value"` (regression test — fails without the fix)
`inheritdoc cref: GetNamed`	`InheritDocConsumer.GetNamed(...)`	Contains `"Gets a named result"` (regression test — fails without the fix)

`test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/Program.fs`

InheritDocTooltipTests.tests createServer added to the LSP test list.

Build Status

✅ C# library builds with XML doc generation
✅ F# test project builds
✅ Full test suite builds (dotnet build — 0 warnings, 0 errors)
✅ Fantomas formatting: no changes required

Generated by Repo Assist for issue #1468

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Krzysztof-Cieslak · 2026-02-25T00:13:29Z

/repo-assist check CI issues, it seems new tests are failing

When a C# project is referenced via ProjectReference, the F# compiler receives the reference assembly path (obj/.../ref/InheritDocLib.dll) rather than the implementation assembly path (bin/.../InheritDocLib.dll). Reference assemblies don't have XML documentation files alongside them; the XML is in the parent directory (obj/...). This caused getXmlDoc to return None for all ProjectReference C# libraries, making hover tooltips show no documentation content. The fix: after failing to find the XML at the expected path, also try the parent directory of the DLL's directory. This handles the common pattern of reference assemblies in obj/.../ref/ with XML docs in obj/.../. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

github-actions · 2026-02-25T00:36:55Z

Commit pushed: 71852e2

Generated by Repo Assist

github-actions · 2026-02-25T00:36:57Z

🤖 This is an automated response from Repo Assist.

I investigated the CI failures and found the root cause. Here's what's happening:

Root Cause

When a C# project is referenced via (ProjectReference) in MSBuild/.NET SDK, the F# compiler receives the reference assembly path (obj/Debug/net8.0/ref/InheritDocLib.dll), not the implementation assembly path (bin/Debug/net8.0/InheritDocLib.dll).

Reference assemblies don't have XML documentation files alongside them — the XML lives in the parent directory (obj/Debug/net8.0/InheritDocLib.xml). This means getXmlDoc was looking for obj/.../ref/InheritDocLib.xml, which doesn't exist, causing it to return None for all ProjectReference C# libraries. All four integration tests (including the direct-documentation baseline tests) therefore showed empty tooltips.

Fix

In src/FsAutoComplete.Core/TipFormatter.fs, getXmlDoc now tries the parent directory as a fallback when the XML isn't found at the expected path alongside the DLL:

obj/.../ref/InheritDocLib.dll  →  first try: obj/.../ref/InheritDocLib.xml  (not found)
                                →  fallback:  obj/.../InheritDocLib.xml      (found ✓)

This is a minimal, surgical change that doesn't affect the common case (where the XML is already alongside the DLL in bin/) and only kicks in when the primary path is missing.

Generated by Repo Assist for issue #1468

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Krzysztof-Cieslak · 2026-02-25T01:02:22Z

src/FsAutoComplete.Core/TipFormatter.fs

        exists filePath false

-    match exists xmlFile true with
+    // When the DLL is a reference assembly (e.g. in obj/.../ref/), the XML doc may


Cc: @baronfel

Ok, the 'maximally-correct' thing to do would be to call the DocumentationProjectOutputGroup Target for each ProjectReference in in this project. This would look something like:

for our project that we care about

call the PrepareProjectReferences Target and get the ProjectReferenceWithConfiguration Items after that Target executes. we need to do this so that the ProjectReference Items have all of the right property metadata on them

then call the DocumentationProjectOutputGroup Target on each of DocumentationProjectOutputGroupOutput Items, and we would do DocumentationProjectOutputGroupOutputItems |> Seq.first (fun i -> i.GetMetadataValue("IsKeyOutput") = "true") |> _.GetMetadataValue("FinalDocFile") to get the correct xmldoc location for this project for all time, regardless of any customizations that the user may have made to the project.

Sources:

MSbuild doc file targets: https://github.com/dotnet/msbuild/blob/3af5ec0a967826337c4fb520109d99686fe04fb6/src/Tasks/Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets#L6532-L6556

Prepareprojectreferences: https://github.com/dotnet/msbuild/blob/3af5ec0a967826337c4fb520109d99686fe04fb6/src/Tasks/Microsoft.Common.CurrentVersion.targets#L2066-L2091

The knowledge about PrepareProjectReferences is just dark magic that you have to know to make sure that the project references are set up right so that subsequent Target calls don't cause re-builds. Hooray.

I imagine we would need to do that as part of the project cracking, and pass information around as needed.

Probably bit out of scope for this PR?

I do pass back AllItems and AllProperties here so if that target was run Implicitly it might already be there.

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Krzysztof-Cieslak reviewed Feb 25, 2026

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Krzysztof-Cieslak marked this pull request as ready for review February 25, 2026 01:03

baronfel mentioned this pull request Feb 25, 2026

Make a more correct way to get key data points from ProjectRefrences of the current project #1471

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[Repo Assist] fix: resolve `(inheritdoc cref="...")` in XML doc tooltips for external assemblies#1468

[Repo Assist] fix: resolve `(inheritdoc cref="...")` in XML doc tooltips for external assemblies#1468
github-actions[bot] wants to merge 6 commits intomainfrom
repo-assist/fix-inheritdoc-cref-resolution-566b0061d2229b57

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github-actions bot commented Feb 24, 2026

Problem

Root Cause

Fix

Scope & Trade-offs

Test Status

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New Files

test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/TestCases/InheritDocCref/

test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/InheritDocTooltipTests.fs

test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/Program.fs

Build Status

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`test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/TestCases/InheritDocCref/`

`test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/InheritDocTooltipTests.fs`

`test/FsAutoComplete.Tests.Lsp/Program.fs`

baronfel Feb 25, 2026 •

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