Test .NET MAUI Preview SDKs Locally with global.json sdk.paths | Community Feed

Trying a new .NET MAUI preview usually means installing an SDK and workloads globally — and then untangling your machine when something breaks. Gerald Versluis walks through a safer approach using the new global.json sdk.paths feature in .NET 10, which keeps preview SDKs local to a single repository.

What you’ll learn

The minimal setup: installing a preview SDK into a .dotnet/ folder with the official dotnet-install scripts and pointing your repo at it via sdk.paths
Keeping the "$host$" fallback so the repo still uses your machine-wide SDK when appropriate
A team-friendly global.json with version, allowPrerelease, rollForward, and a helpful errorMessage, plus a small install script for consistent setup
Clean teardown: removing .dotnet/ to undo the experiment, and why .dotnet/ belongs in .gitignore
The important caveats: you need a .NET 10+ host, workloads must be installed through the local ./.dotnet/dotnet binary, and per-OS realities for MAUI platform workloads
The new setup-local-sdk skill that gives GitHub Copilot a repeatable checklist for this workflow

If you like testing .NET MAUI previews early but hate breaking your main machine, this write-up gives you a boring-to-undo workflow. Read the full post for the exact scripts, global.json examples, and the official docs links.