This Plaground directory contains projects to aid interactive debugging of test platform. TestPlatform is normally built as a set of distinct pieces and then assembled in the artifacts folder. This forces rebuilding using build.cmd to try out changes. The TestPlatform.Playground project builds a simpler version of TestPlatform to avoid always rebuilding via build.cmd, offering a tighther development loop.
The project references TranslationLayer, vstest.console, TestHostProvider, testhost and MSTest1 projects, to make sure we build all the dependencies of that are used to run tests via VSTestConsoleWrapper. It then copies the components from their original build locations, to $(TargetDir)\vstest.console directory, and it's subfolders to create an executable copy of TestPlatform that is similar to what we ship.
The copying might trigger only on re-build, if you see outdated dependencies, Rebuild this project instead of just Build.
Use this as playground for your debugging of end-to-end scenarios, it will automatically attach vstest.console and teshost sub-processes. It won't stop at entry-point automatically, don't forget to set your breakpoints, or remove VSTEST_DEBUG_NOBP from the environment variables of this project.