Connecting an integrated development environment with an application instance

A facility is provided for connecting with an application instance. In various embodiments, the facility starts an integrated development environment component, provides an identifier to the integrated development environment component so that the integrated development environment component can indicate the identifier when registering, locates the provided identifier in a registry, and connects to the identified process. The facility can include a running object table component that stores identifications of running application instances and their corresponding monikers, and an application having a provider component that can communicate with an integrated development environment component that, when started by the application, receives an identifier and registers the started integrated development environment with the running object table, the registration including the associated identifier so that the application can identify the started integrated development environment.