ASP.NET Core Web API for AKS template

A dotnet new template for creating a fully-featured, 12 Factor, ASP.NET Core Web API for AKS.

Installation

dotnet new -i RobBell.AksApi.Template

The template resolves from the official NuGet repository.

Usage

To create a new project named MyApi:

dotnet new aksapi -n MyApi

Other options include:

--controller-name       The name of the default controller
                        Default: SampleController

--disable-open-api      Disable OpenAPI (Swagger) support
                        Default: false

--disable-health-check  Disable liveness and readiness support
                        Default: false

--disable-logging       Disable Logging and AppInsights support
                        Default: false

--instrumentation-key   The AppInsights application key if logging is enabled
                        Default: 11111111-1111-1111-11111111111111111

--skip-restore          Skips the restore of the project on create
                        Default: false

Template features

• Sample endpoint
• Docker containerisation
• OpenAPI support (Swagger)
• Automatic post creation actions - dotnet restore
• Health check endpoint, including liveness and readiness probes
• No unused package references or usings
• Helm charts
  • Deployment and service creation
  • Image references
  • Labels
• AppInsights configuration - thanks to Dirk Rheeder
• Reintroduce launchsettings.json as per https://github.com/dotnet/aspnetcore/tree/master/src/ProjectTemplates
• README in created project, including file overview

In progress

• YAML release pipeline (Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions?)
• Clean-up rules
• Linting
• Build badges, NuGet package version

To be confirmed

• Tests project (includes running in Dockerfile) - are these valuable? Forces this to become a multi-project, and possibly solution-creating template
• Other 12 Factor app traits - look at what would be useful to include
• Other creation parameters (Port? EnablingAuthentication? FrameworkVersion?)
• Are there any references that can be pulled at creation time? Helm charts for example
• LICENSE and CONTRIBUTING files - should dotnet new creation map 1:1 with a repository?

The template creation project

• Local build and install
• Tests
• Installation and usage notes
• Template packaging on all platforms (.csproj package)
• Template package versioning
• Removal of package warnings

Local development

After making changes to the template, run the script below to pack and install locally:

./pack-and-install.sh

Once complete, you can create new projects from the template using:

dotnet new aksapi

Troubleshooting

Use official nuget repository explicitly

Try:

dotnet new -i RobBell.AksApi.Template --nuget-source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

Sometimes you might have private NuGet repositories in your package sources which interfere with installation of the template from the official repo. For example:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\3.1.403\NuGet.targets(128,5):
error : Unable to load the service index for source https://myprivatenugetrepo.com/nuget/v3/index.json.

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\3.1.403\NuGet.targets(128,5):
error :   Response status code does not indicate success: 401 (Unauthorized).