Visual Studio

Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for building applications across .NET, C++, web, mobile, cloud, and game platforms on Windows and macOS. While the Visual Studio IDE itself is not exposed as a SaaS REST API, Microsoft provides developer-facing APIs for Live Share real-time collaboration (consumed via the vsls extension SDK) and the Visual Studio Marketplace REST API for discovering and distributing extensions, themes, and tools.

Visual Studio publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include IDE, Developer Tools, Microsoft, Code Collaboration, and Marketplace.

Visual Studio’s developer surface includes documentation, pricing, engineering blog, and 7 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

11.8/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1

2 APIs

IDEDeveloper ToolsMicrosoftCode CollaborationMarketplaceExtensions

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1

Composite quality — 11.8/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 2.2 / 20

Commercial Clarity 2.1 / 20

Operational Transparency 0.7 / 13

Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 6.9 / 10

Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/visual-studio: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 2

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

VulnerabilityDisclosure

VulnerabilityDisclosure

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Pricing

Pricing

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Download

Download

Marketplace

Marketplace

Source (apis.yml)

aid: visual-studio
name: Visual Studio
description: Microsoft Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for building applications across .NET,
  C++, web, mobile, cloud, and game platforms on Windows and macOS. While the Visual Studio IDE itself is not exposed as a
  SaaS REST API, Microsoft provides developer-facing APIs for Live Share real-time collaboration (consumed via the vsls extension
  SDK) and the Visual Studio Marketplace REST API for discovering and distributing extensions, themes, and tools.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/visual-studio.png
tags:
- IDE
- Developer Tools
- Microsoft
- Code Collaboration
- Marketplace
- Extensions
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/visual-studio/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-11'
modified: '2026-05-11'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: visual-studio:live-share-api
  name: Visual Studio Live Share API
  description: Extension-facing API (via the vsls npm module) that allows other VS Code and Visual Studio extensions to start,
    join, and end Live Share collaborative sessions and expose shared RPC services to guests.
  humanURL: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/services/live-share
  baseURL: https://www.npmjs.com/package/vsls
  tags:
  - Code Collaboration
  - Pair Programming
  - Extensions
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/liveshare/
  - type: SDKs
    url: https://www.npmjs.com/package/vsls
  - type: Marketplace
    url: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=MS-vsliveshare.vsliveshare
- aid: visual-studio:marketplace-api
  name: Visual Studio Marketplace API
  description: REST API for querying and retrieving Visual Studio and VS Code extensions, publishers, versions, and assets
    from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
  humanURL: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com
  baseURL: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery
  tags:
  - Marketplace
  - Extensions
  - Discovery
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/extend/publish/overview
common:
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/visual-studio-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/visual-studio-domain-security.yml
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/microsoft
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-visual-studio
- type: Website
  url: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio
- type: Pricing
  url: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/pricing
- type: Download
  url: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads
- type: Marketplace
  url: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com
- url: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/feed/
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Visual Studio

Kin Score

APIs 2

Visual Studio Live Share API

Visual Studio Marketplace API

Security Posture 2

Visual Studio Domain Security

Visual Studio Vulnerability Disclosure

Resources