Table of Contents

AOT Compatibility

Crystal.Avalonia is fully compatible with .NET AOT (Ahead-of-Time) compilation and trimming.

What is AOT?

AOT compilation converts your .NET code to native code at build time, rather than at runtime via JIT compilation. This results in:

  • Faster startup time
  • Reduced memory footprint
  • Smaller deployment size (with trimming)
  • No JIT overhead

Crystal.Avalonia AOT Features

IsAotCompatible

The library is marked as AOT-compatible:

<PropertyGroup>
    <IsAotCompatible>true</IsAotCompatible>
</PropertyGroup>

DynamicallyAccessedMembers Annotations

All generic methods that use reflection (like Activator.CreateInstance) are properly annotated:

public static void AddMvvmTransient<
    [DynamicallyAccessedMembers(DynamicallyAccessedMemberTypes.PublicConstructors)] TView,
    [DynamicallyAccessedMembers(DynamicallyAccessedMemberTypes.PublicConstructors)] TViewModel>
    (this IServiceCollection services)
    where TView : Control where TViewModel : class
{
    // ...
}

Similarly, AddMvvmSingleton also uses these annotations to ensure AOT compatibility.

This tells the trimmer exactly what members are needed at runtime, preventing accidental removal.

Publishing with AOT

Desktop Application

dotnet publish -c Release -p:PublishAot=true

With Trimming

dotnet publish -c Release -p:PublishTrimmed=true -p:PublishAot=true

Show Trim Warnings

dotnet publish -c Release -p:ShowTrimmedWarnings=true

Project Configuration

Example .csproj

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

    <PropertyGroup>
        <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
        <TargetFramework>net10.0</TargetFramework>
        <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
        <IsAotCompatible>true</IsAotCompatible>
    </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

Avalonia Integration

Crystal.Avalonia template already enables compiled bindings by default:

<AvaloniaUseCompiledBindingsByDefault>true</AvaloniaUseCompiledBindingsByDefault>

This means XAML bindings are pre-compiled and do not use reflection at runtime. Combined with x:DataType, binding is fully AOT-friendly.

Troubleshooting

Trimmed Types Missing

If you see warnings about trimmed types:

  1. Add [DynamicallyAccessedMembers] to generic method parameters
  2. Use Preserve<> attribute on needed types
  3. Add entries to rd.xml file for complex scenarios

Runtime Missing Types

If types are missing at runtime:

  1. Check that all View/ViewModel types are registered
  2. Verify module assemblies are not trimmed away
  3. Use PreserveAll or PreserveMember where needed

Further Reading

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