How to handle missing debug.keystore in Xamarin Android

Well, it's highly unlikely to happen, but...

This is for the rare case where you have installed Xamarin, are full of excitement, and go straight to look for the debug.keystore to issue an API key, only to find it's not there.

The debug.keystore used by Xamarin during debugging is located at the following path on Windows, as stated in the official documentation:

C:\Users[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Xamarin\Mono for Android\debug.keystore

Obtaining a Google Maps API Key - Xamarin

But it's not there at first, is it?

Just stay calm and go ahead and launch the Visual Studio Emulator for Android once.

It gets created the first time you launch the Android emulator.

That's all there is to it.

Done!