Shouldn't VS for Mac be able to just open the .sln and .csproj files?

@ardalis I think @khawars is referring to the extension.
https://github.com/ardalis/CleanArchitecture#using-the-visual-studio-item-template

All it does it creates the same files as cloning the repository right?

From the point in time when it was last updated, yes. The latest files are always in the repo master branch.

One option would also be to create a template for the CLI do you could say dotnet new clean and have it do the right thing. Though that's probably worth a separate issue.