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.NET Aspire

Core Principles

1. AppHost orchestrates; it is never deployed itself — Aspire's core job is the local development experience: starting services, databases, and message brokers together. Modern Aspire also generates deployment assets (aspire publish for docker-compose/Kubernetes manifests, aspire deploy for Azure Container Apps) — but the AppHost process itself stays a dev/build-time tool, not a production runtime.
2. Service defaults are your baseline — The ServiceDefaults project configures OpenTelemetry, health checks, and resilience for all services in one place.
3. Use Aspire integrations — Aspire has built-in integrations for PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, SQL Server, and more. They handle connection strings, health checks, and tracing automatically.
4. The dashboard is your observability tool — Use the Aspire dashboard for local development tracing, logging, and metrics instead of setting up Seq/Grafana locally.

Patterns

AppHost Configuration

// AppHost/Program.cs
var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Infrastructure resources
var postgres = builder.AddPostgres("postgres")
    .WithPgAdmin()
    .AddDatabase("myappdb");

var redis = builder.AddRedis("redis")
    .WithRedisInsight();

var rabbitmq = builder.AddRabbitMQ("messaging")
    .WithManagementPlugin();

// Application projects
var api = builder.AddProject<Projects.MyApp_Api>("api")
    .WithReference(postgres)
    .WithReference(redis)
    .WithReference(rabbitmq)
    .WithExternalHttpEndpoints();

var worker = builder.AddProject<Projects.MyApp_Worker>("worker")
    .WithReference(postgres)
    .WithReference(rabbitmq);

builder.Build().Run();

Service Defaults

// ServiceDefaults/Extensions.cs — Standard Aspire service defaults
// Configures OpenTelemetry (metrics + tracing), health checks, service discovery, and resilience
public static class Extensions
{
    public static IHostApplicationBuilder AddServiceDefaults(this IHostApplicationBuilder builder)
    {
        builder.ConfigureOpenTelemetry();
        builder.AddDefaultHealthChecks();
        builder.Services.AddServiceDiscovery();

        builder.Services.ConfigureHttpClientDefaults(http =>
        {
            http.AddStandardResilienceHandler();
            http.AddServiceDiscovery();
        });

        return builder;
    }

    // ConfigureOpenTelemetry: adds logging, metrics (ASP.NET, HttpClient, Runtime),
    //   tracing (ASP.NET, HttpClient, EF Core), and OTLP exporter if configured
    // AddDefaultHealthChecks: adds a "self" liveness check tagged ["live"]
}

Using Service Defaults in a Project

// MyApp.Api/Program.cs
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.AddServiceDefaults();

// Add Aspire integrations
builder.AddNpgsqlDbContext<AppDbContext>("myappdb");
builder.AddRedisDistributedCache("redis");

var app = builder.Build();
app.MapDefaultEndpoints(); // health check endpoints
app.Run();

Service-to-Service Communication

// AppHost — configure service references
var orderApi = builder.AddProject<Projects.OrderApi>("order-api");
var paymentApi = builder.AddProject<Projects.PaymentApi>("payment-api")
    .WithReference(orderApi); // paymentApi can discover orderApi

// In PaymentApi — use service discovery
builder.Services.AddHttpClient<OrderClient>(client =>
{
    client.BaseAddress = new Uri("https+http://order-api");
});

Solution Structure with Aspire

MyApp.slnx
├── MyApp.AppHost/               # Aspire orchestrator
│   └── Program.cs
├── MyApp.ServiceDefaults/       # Shared service configuration
│   └── Extensions.cs
├── src/
│   ├── MyApp.Api/               # Web API project
│   └── MyApp.Worker/            # Background worker
└── tests/
    └── MyApp.Api.Tests/

Anti-patterns

Don't Deploy the AppHost Process

// BAD — running the AppHost executable in production as an orchestrator
// The AppHost is a dev/build-time tool, not a production runtime

// GOOD — deploy the generated assets, not the AppHost:
//   aspire publish  → docker-compose / Kubernetes manifests from the app model
//   aspire deploy   → direct deployment (e.g., Azure Container Apps)

Don't Hardcode Connection Strings with Aspire

// BAD — hardcoding connection strings defeats Aspire's purpose
builder.Services.AddDbContext<AppDbContext>(o =>
    o.UseNpgsql("Host=localhost;Database=myapp;..."));

// GOOD — use Aspire integration (connection string injected automatically)
builder.AddNpgsqlDbContext<AppDbContext>("myappdb");

Don't Skip Service Defaults

// BAD — manually configuring each service
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()...
builder.Services.AddHealthChecks()...

// GOOD — use shared service defaults
builder.AddServiceDefaults();

Decision Guide

Scenario	Recommendation
Local dev with multiple services	Aspire AppHost
Single-project local dev	dotnet run is fine, Aspire optional
Shared service configuration	ServiceDefaults project
Database for local dev	Aspire AddPostgres() / AddSqlServer()
Service discovery	Aspire's built-in service discovery
Production deployment	aspire publish (compose/K8s manifests) or aspire deploy (ACA); never the AppHost itself
Observability in local dev	Aspire dashboard (auto-configured)