Template Studio generates WinUI 3, WPF and UWP starters from a Visual Studio 2022 wizard, with a newest release from 2023

Three separate extensions share one wizard, and the C++ one is marked FUTURE

Template Studio is not a single install. It is a suite of Visual Studio 2022 extensions published on the Visual Studio Marketplace: Template Studio for WinUI (C#), Template Studio for WPF and Template Studio for UWP. A fourth entry, Template Studio for WinUI (C++), is listed with the label FUTURE and has no marketplace link.

The flow is short. Install the extension that matches your framework, then pick the corresponding Template Studio project template in Visual Studio's New Project dialog. Name the project, click Create, and the wizard opens.

The consequence of the split is that each framework gets its own choices. What you can pick under WinUI 3 differs from what you can pick under WPF or UWP, and a team working across frameworks installs more than one extension. The CI table in the repository also tracks WinUI (C#), WinUI (C++), WPF, UWP and a Shared target as separate pipelines, which fits the way the code is divided.

Project type choices differ by framework: WPF gets a Ribbon, UWP gets a horizontal pane

The first wizard step asks how the app's UI navigation should behave. WinUI 3 offers Blank, Navigation Pane and Menu Bar. WPF offers the same three plus a Ribbon. UWP offers Blank, Navigation Pane, Horizontal Navigation Pane and Menu Bar.

Each project type has its own page in docs/, for example docs/WPF/projectTypes/ribbon.md and docs/UWP/projectTypes/horizontalnavigationpane.md. The choices are small in number by design, in line with the stated principle that generated templates will be kept simple.

A practical limit follows from the lists. There is no Ribbon for WinUI 3 and no Horizontal Navigation Pane outside UWP, so a team moving a WPF Ribbon app to WinUI 3 will not find the same starting layout. Navigation shape is decided once, at project creation, in the wizard. Changing it later means editing the generated code by hand.

WinUI 3 offers only the MVVM Toolkit, while WPF and UWP add Code Behind and Prism

The second step picks the app design pattern. For WinUI 3 the only listed option is the MVVM Toolkit. For WPF and for UWP the lists are three items long: MVVM Toolkit, Code Behind and Prism.

So a WinUI 3 project from Template Studio is an MVVM Toolkit project, and a developer who prefers code-behind pages or Prism has to start from another source or convert the output. The WPF and UWP side suits teams that already settled on Prism or on code-behind for small tools.

There is one more thing to know about this choice. The pattern decides how every generated page and service is wired, so it is the hardest decision in the wizard to reverse. Reading the pattern's page under docs/WinUI/frameworks/ or the matching WPF and UWP folders before you click Create costs a few minutes.

Pages, features and services are added by name, with TODO markers left in the code

After project type and pattern, the wizard moves through app pages, features, services and automated tests.

Pages run from a blank page, through common layouts such as list/detail and web view, to pages implementing common patterns such as app settings. You add as many of each as you need and give each a name. Features cover capabilities such as storage, notifications and layout theming. The wizard builds out the framework for each chosen feature and tags TODO items where your own work belongs. Services connect to data services, set up cloud connected services and enforce rules with the XAML Styler extension.

The last attribute set is Automated Tests: test projects for unit tests or for Selenium-like UI test automation.

The generated code carries links to documentation and TODO comments, per the project's own description. That is the honest shape of the output: a scaffold with signposts, not working business logic. The TODO tags are where a code search should start after generation, since they mark each place a feature stops being wired and starts being yours.

The principles say templates compile and run but are a starting point, not an application

Eight principles govern the templates. Generated templates are kept simple. They are a starting point and not a completed application. They must compile and run once generated, and they should work on all device families. Comments in templates carry links to signup pages for keys, MSDN, blogs and how-tos, and the guidance must be validated from the framework, SDK or library's creator. Code follows the .NET Core coding style, and production templates try to adhere to the design language of the current Windows 10 release.

Two of these have sharp consequences. The second one means you should budget time to harden what comes out. The sixth one reads: all UWP features are supported for the two most recent RTM Windows 10 updates, and the versions it names are the May 2020 Update (2004) and the May 2019 Update (1903). Those are the supported baselines the project states, so a UWP project aimed at newer Windows 10 or 11 builds should confirm what the template targets before relying on it.

The newest tagged release is v5.5 from November 2023, though the repository was pushed to in October 2026

The release list shows v5.5 (Template Studio for WinUI, C#) on 2023-11-15, v5.4 on 2023-05-16 and v5.3 on 2023-02-13. The last push to the repository was on 2026-10-02. The repository is not archived.

Those two dates tell different stories. A push in 2026 means the repository still receives changes. A latest release in 2023 means the tagged packages are almost three years old. The project does not claim active development, and the safest reading is the plain one: the newest tag is from 2023-11-15, and anything after that comes from the main branch.

In practice, check the version of the marketplace extension you install, compare it with CHANGELOG.md in the repository root, and read docs/roadmap.md for the project's priorities and upcoming milestones. The repository also holds specs/, design/ and _build/ folders. Contributions follow CONTRIBUTING.md, and the project has adopted the .NET Foundation Code of Conduct.

Telemetry is logged by the extension, and the license shows up as NOASSERTION

A privacy section closes the documentation with a statement that the extension logs basic telemetry, with a link to the details. The text is cut off after that sentence in the source, so read the linked page to see what is collected and how to turn it off before using the extension on a locked-down corporate machine.

The license field on the repository reads NOASSERTION, which means the host could not match the files to a standard license identifier. The tree contains LICENSE.md, so open that file and read it yourself before copying templates into a commercial product. The generated projects are your code, but the terms covering the template sources are in that file and the repository does not state a one-line answer.

The repository's primary language shows up as Rich Text Format, which reflects the template files and documentation, not the language of the apps it produces. The generated apps are C# for WinUI, and the documentation covers WPF and UWP under their own folders.

Editorial conclusion

Use Template Studio when you start a new WinUI 3, WPF or UWP app in Visual Studio 2022 and want navigation, pages, services and a test project laid out before you write code. Skip it for an existing solution, for WinUI with C++, or for a pattern outside the three framework choices. Before you adopt it, look at the date of the extension you install and the generated pages, since the newest tagged release is v5.5 from 2023-11-15.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. microsoft/TemplateStudio on GitHub
3. README
4. Releases