Spec: NuGet onboarding to Unified Settings in Visual Studio

accepted/2024/unified-vs-settings.md

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+# NuGet onboarding to Unified Settings in Visual Studio
+<!-- Replace `Title` with an appropriate title for your design -->
+
+- Donnie Goodson ([donnie-msft](https://github.com/donnie-msft))
+- GitHub Issue <https://github.com/NuGet/Client.Engineering/issues/2712>
+
+## Summary
+
+<!-- One-paragraph description of the proposal. -->
+
+Visual Studio Options are moving to a new user interface called "Unified Settings".
+The Visual Studio (VS) IDE team is responsible for the UI controls, and individual product teams will maintain a JSON file declaring the structure and data types for settings in the IDE.
+
+## Motivation
+
+<!-- Why are we doing this? What pain points does this solve? What is the expected outcome? -->
+
+The Visual Studio Editor team created Unified Settings to make the configuration experience have a Consistent UI, scoping capabilities, and the ability to share and sync settings across devices.
+A blog was published to expand on this motivation and collect feedback from the community, [Unified Settings: Share Your Feedback](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/unifiedsettings/).
+
+For NuGet, the improved maintainability will reduce ad-hoc UI code and allow the team to focus on the effect of the settings, and not the UI around the settings.
+I expect significantly less usability and accessibility issues around NuGet's VS Options because of this standardized UI.
+
+## Explanation
+
+### Functional explanation
+
+<!-- Explain the proposal as if it were already implemented and you're teaching it to another person. -->
+<!-- Introduce new concepts, functional designs with real life examples, and low-fidelity mockups or pseudocode to show how this proposal would look. -->
+
+NuGet's repository will maintain a `registration.json` file to declare all VS Settings, including localizible names, data types, default values, and any dependencies among the values of other settings.
+
+A prototype of the NuGet General Options page in Unified Settings is shown below.
+Note that the `Clear NuGet Cache` button is missing at this time.
+![Screenshot showing a prototype of the NuGet General Options page in Unified Settings](../../meta/resources/UnifiedSettings/general-prototype.png)
+
+Since NuGet uses a custom `nuget.config` to store settings values, a custom data store will be indicated by using an External Settings API provided by the VS IDE team.
+
+### Technical explanation
+
+<!-- Explain the proposal in sufficient detail with implementation details, interaction models, and clarification of corner cases. -->
+
+### External API
+...
+
+
+## Drawbacks
+
+<!-- Why should we not do this? -->
+No drawbacks have been identified.
+
+## Rationale and alternatives
+
+<!-- Why is this the best design compared to other designs? -->
+<!-- What other designs have been considered and why weren't they chosen? -->
+<!-- What is the impact of not doing this? -->
+No alternatives have been identified.
+
+## Prior Art
+
+<!-- What prior art, both good and bad are related to this proposal? -->
+<!-- Do other features exist in other ecosystems and what experience have their community had? -->
+<!-- What lessons from other communities can we learn from? -->
+<!-- Are there any resources that are relevant to this proposal? -->
+
+The legacy Visual Studio Options for NuGet will serve as a starting point for the migration to Unified Settings.
+
+## Unresolved Questions
+
+<!-- What parts of the proposal do you expect to resolve before this gets accepted? -->
+<!-- What parts of the proposal need to be resolved before the proposal is stabilized? -->
+<!-- What related issues would you consider out of scope for this proposal but can be addressed in the future? -->
+
+No questions have been identified.
+
+## Future Possibilities
+
+<!-- What future possibilities can you think of that this proposal would help with? -->
+
+No future possibilities have been identified.