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Enhance state reporting for complex resources #1659

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Description

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

As a system administrator configuring infrastructure with DSC,
I want to know which sub-properties and array items are out-of-state or were changed,
So that I don't have to manually compare complex objects and array items manually.

Currently, the DSC engine can only report when top-level properties are out of state (for test operations) or changed (for set operations). For resources with array and object properties, this requires the user to carefully review the desired/actual or before/after state for the property to understand which subproperty or array item triggered the reporting for the top-level field.

For example, consider the following output snippet for the result of a test operation:

desiredState:
  foo:
    bar: true
    baz: false
  fruit: ['apple', 'banana']
actualState:
  foo:
    bar: false
    baz: false
  fruit: ['apple']
differingProperties: ['foo', 'fruit']

This problem is amplified for resources with more deeply nested objects and arrays.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

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Activity

  1. SteveL-MSFT commented on Sep 24, 2026

    @SteveL-MSFT
    Member

    WG discussed this and would prefer exploring a diff extension to allow different tools to be able to provide a more detailed graphical (even TUI) view of the diff. We would like an RFC on this new extension proposal.

  2. moved this from Todo to Waiting on RFC in DSC Working Groupon Sep 24, 2026
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