Obfuscate Your Project

Obfuscate using Command Palette

In order to obfuscate your assemblies using the command palette you need to perform the following: 

1. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P on Mac)
2. Type Dotfuscator: Obfuscate and press Enter
   
3. Select the input: DLL, EXE, or Dotfuscator Config XML file
   
4. Select an output folder — the extension automatically appends an obfuscated subdirectory
5. Watch the obfuscation progress in the integrated terminal
   

Note: The extension remembers the last selected directory for an input file for convenience.

Obfuscate using Dotnet SDK integration

In order to obfuscate your assemblies using Dotnet SDK integration do the following: 

1. Right-click on any .csproj file (either inside the .csproj content, using the tab, or left panel)
2. Select from the context menu Dotfuscator > Add Build Integration
   
3. The program will automatically add the default integration for .NET SDK

4. Using Visual Studio Code terminal, you can execute a build command in Release mode:

   dotnet build -c Release  

   - Before executing the command, restart the terminal. You may see a warning notification in the terminal asking you to do so.

5. Watch the obfuscation progress in the integrated terminal

Note: This integration uses an environment variable set only in the Visual Studio Code terminal. This is the main reason why the terminal has to be restarted. In case you try to build the application using any other terminal, you will get an error because the environment variable is not set at the user/system level. You will have to manually set that environment variable or update the .csproj configuration to point to the correct Dotfuscator CLI location.

For detailed information about customizing the configuration file generated by default, see Configuration File Reference.

Generate a Configuration File

For repeatable builds or to customize protection settings, generate a Dotfuscator XML configuration file:

1.  Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P on Mac)
2. Type Dotfuscator: Generate Config and press Enter
   
3. Select the input DLL or EXE file
   
4. Choose a location and filename for the output XML configuration file
   
5. The config file is generated in the integrated terminal
6. To trigger the build run the steps from Obfuscate using Command Palette
   by feeding the generated config.

Note: If the XML file doesn't exist, it will be created. If it already exists, it will be overwritten.

For detailed information about customizing your configuration file, see Configuration File Reference.