Must-have resources for new .NET Aspire developers
Tags: dotnet, aspire, cloud, csharp
Published: 2024-05-27 11:00:00

Six months after its first preview released during .NET Conf 2023, .NET Aspire becomes generally available (GA) at Microsoft Build 2024. This project, which aims to revolutionize the local development of distributed applications, has unfortunately been overlooked by some due to its preview status. This is good news for those who can now embark on the adventure. Here are some resources to learn how to use .NET Aspire.

## .NET Aspire official documentation

The best place to start learning .NET Aspire is [the official documentation](https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspire/). It includes an overview, a quickstart guide, dives into conceptual details and much more.

## Official videos on the Microsoft YouTube channels

Not a fan of reading? Microsoft has published videos throughout the development of .NET Aspire. You can understand what problem it tries to solve, how the .NET team arrived at this solution, how to use it, and what the vision for the future is.

- [Welcome to .NET Aspire video series](https://aka.ms/aspire/videos), a series of 9 videos released at the Microsoft Build 2024.
- [Building Cloud Native apps with .NET 8 | .NET Conf 2023](https://youtu.be/z1M-7Bms1Jg), November 15, 2023.
- [ASP.NET Community Standup - .NET Aspire Update](https://www.youtube.com/live/KEcUfMbCgpA), January 23, 2024.
- [ASP.NET Community Standup - .NET Aspire in action](https://www.youtube.com/live/kAF9No5KZrg), February 6, 2024.
- [ASP.NET Community Standup: .NET Aspire Update](https://www.youtube.com/live/Osf7_ZxRlvw), April 16, 2024.
- [Deploy distributed .NET apps to the cloud with .NET Aspire and Azure Container Apps](https://youtu.be/uryJN7UEn4M), April 10, 2024.

## Official code samples on GitHub

The [official samples repository](https://github.com/dotnet/aspire-samples) contains valuable examples and demonstrates a small portion of the possibilities offered by .NET Aspire:

- A real-world example of a distributed application with microservices,
- JavaScript frontends and Node.js backends integration,
- Desktop apps integration,
- Various databases integration,
- Dapr integration and more.

## Community videos

.NET Aspire has generated a lot of enthusiasm in the community. Here are some videos from developers who have experimented with .NET Aspire and share their experiences.

- [What Is .NET Aspire? The Insane Future of .NET!](https://youtu.be/DORZA_S7f9w) by Nick Chapsas, November 19, 2023.
- [First Look at .NET Aspire - Distributed Applications in .NET 8](https://youtu.be/8aG410nmjtQ) by Milan Jovanović, December 26, 2023.
- [WHY and HOW to Add .NET Aspire to ANY .NET API and Web App in Minutes](https://youtu.be/fN3ufsIF7vs) by James Montemagno, April 18, 2024.
- [Cloud-native apps with .NET Aspire](https://youtu.be/J02mvcEKrsI) by Layla Porter, November 26, 2023.
- [Learn C# with CSharpFritz: Introducing .NET Aspire](https://www.youtube.com/live/dJ4uEANZIdQ) by Jeff Fritz, May 8, 2024.

## David Fowler's experiments on GitHub

Do you want deep technical content about .NET Aspire? Watch how David Fowler pushes the limits of the .NET Aspire application model in these advanced scenarios. In my opinion, some of this content should be integrated into .NET Aspire.

- [How to use .NET Aspire with Redis](https://github.com/davidfowl/AspireWithRedis).
- [How to use YARP with .NET Aspire to route between services](https://github.com/davidfowl/AspireYarp).
- [How to use .NET Aspire to show a Swagger UI for any resource that exposes an OpenAPI endpoint](https://github.com/davidfowl/AspireSwaggerUI).
- [How to extend .NET Aspire application model to enable waiting for dependencies to be available before starting the application](https://github.com/davidfowl/WaitForDependenciesAspire).
- [How to use .NET Aspire to deploy Event Grid for local use then publish and subscribe events between resources](https://github.com/davidfowl/EventGridDemo).
- [How to use and deploy Event Hubs, which is a resource that doesn't exist in .NET Aspire by default](https://github.com/davidfowl/AspireEventHub).
- [A prototype using Pulumi and .NET Aspire together for local development](https://github.com/davidfowl/AspirePulumi).

## My blog posts

Since the launch of .NET Aspire, I've written several articles on the subject. Here are some of my favorites:

- [Exploring the Microsoft Developer Control Plane at the heart of the new .NET Aspire](https://anthonysimmon.com/exploring-microsoft-developer-control-plane-core-dotnet-aspire-dotnet-8/), November 21, 2023.
- [.NET Aspire dashboard is the best tool to visualize your OpenTelemetry data during local development](https://anthonysimmon.com/dotnet-aspire-dashboard-best-tool-visualize-opentelemetry-local-dev/), March 25, 2024.
- [.NET Aspire is the best way to experiment with Dapr during local development](https://anthonysimmon.com/dotnet-aspire-best-way-to-experiment-dapr-local-dev/), April 29, 2024.
- [Referencing external Docker containers in .NET Aspire using the new custom resources API](https://anthonysimmon.com/referencing-external-docker-containers-dotnet-aspire-custom-resources/), April 11, 2024.
- [Running Ruby on Rails web apps with .NET Aspire](https://anthonysimmon.com/running-ruby-on-rails-with-dotnet-aspire/), April 18, 2024.

## More blog posts, online resources and projects

There are many other online resources to learn .NET Aspire. Here are some of my recommendations:

- [General Availability of .NET Aspire: Simplifying .NET Cloud-Native Development](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/dotnet-aspire-general-availability/), by Damian Edwards.
- [.NET Aspire Learn Path](https://aka.ms/aspire/learn), the official collection of learning resources for .NET Aspire.
- [Aspireify.NET](https://aspireify.net/), a .NET Aspire content aggregator by Jeff Fritz.
- [.NET Aspire announcements & articles on Microsoft's .NET blog](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/category/dotnet-aspire/).
- [JetBrains Rider and the .NET Aspire Plugin](https://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2024/02/19/jetbrains-rider-and-the-net-aspire-plugin/), because not everyone uses Visual Studio.
- [Using the Aspire Dashboard for Python OpenTelemetry tracing, metrics, and logs](https://tonybaloney.github.io/posts/using-dotnet-aspire-dashboard-for-python-opentelemetry.html) by Anthony Shaw.
- [Aspirate](https://github.com/prom3theu5/aspirational-manifests#aspirate-aspir8), a tool that can generate kustomize manifests for deploying aspire apps to Kubernetes, by David Sekula. 

## Social networks

If you want to stay updated with the latest news on .NET Aspire and discover what the community is building with it, I recommend following the news on X: [#aspire](https://x.com/hashtag/aspire) and more recently [#dotnetaspire](https://x.com/hashtag/dotnetaspire).

You can also follow the people who work closely on .NET Aspire:

- [David Fowler](https://twitter.com/davidfowl), Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft.
- [Damian Edwards](https://twitter.com/DamianEdwards), Principal Architect at Microsoft.
- [Tim Heuer](https://twitter.com/timheuer), Principal Product Manager Lead at Microsoft.
- [David Pine](https://twitter.com/davidpine7), Senior Content Developer at Microsoft.
- [James Newton-King](https://twitter.com/jamesnk), Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft.
- [Eric Erhardt](https://twitter.com/eehardt), Principal Software Engineer at Microsoft.

## .NET Aspire's source code

The [.NET Aspire repository on GitHub](https://github.com/dotnet/aspire) is the source of truth for understanding how it works. I strongly encourage you to explore it in your browser or in your IDE via SourceLink.

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*Cover picture, from left to right: .NET Aspire documentation, David Fowler and Damian Edwards during an ASP.NET Community Standup, Aspireify.NET and Nick Chapsas on YouTube.*