Setting Up the App

Previous: .NET Core App

In this section, we'll describe how to start your first app. We'll be building a Notes RESTful API where multiple users can add and retrieve notes.

The steps vary slightly based on which tools you're using, so follow along with the IDE you're using:

Rider

Rider Instructions

Run Rider.

---

Click New Solution and choose Empty Solution. Name it NotesApp.

---

Right-click on the solution and add a new project.

---

Select ASP.NET Core Web Application from the .NET Core section. Name it NotesApp.

---

Let's take a look at the generated project in the Solution Explorer.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio Instructions

Run Visual Studio and select the File menu.

---

Click New > Project. The template for an Blank Solution can be found under the Other Project Types section. Select it and name the solution NotesApp.

---

Right-click on the solution and add a new project.

---

Select ASP.NET Core Web Application template and name the project NotesApp.

---

You'll be presented with another dialog at this point, giving you different setups for an ASP.NET Core Web Application. Select API and hit OK.

---

Let's take a look at the generated project in the Solution Explorer.

VS Code / CLI

VS Code / CLI Instructions

On the command-line, in your workspace, within a folder of your choice, run:

dotnet new sln -n "NotesApp"

This will create a new empty solution with the name NotesApp.

---

Next we'll create our project:

dotnet new webapi -n "NotesApp" -o "NotesApp"

This will create a new ASP.NET Core Web API project called NotesApp and place it in a directory called NotesApp. We still need to add it to the solution, though, so you'll need to run:

dotnet sln "NotesApp.sln" add "NotesApp/NotesApp.csproj"

to link it to the solution.

---

Now you should be able to open the directory containing your NotesApp.sln in VS Code to take a look through the files that were created.

---

Let's run through what we have now.

First is the solution NotesApp. Usually, solution files aren't modified directly. Currently, our solution references one project, NotesApp, our Web API.

Within Rider and Visual Studio, expanding the project reveals the Dependencies section. Within that, you'll find a number of sections, listing out what the project relies on, including .NETCoreApp 2.2 (Rider)/Microsoft.NETCoreApp (2.2) (Visual Studio), indicating that we are using .NET Core 2.2 for our project. The Packages (Rider)/NuGet (Visual Studio) section provides a deep-dive into what dependencies we have included in our project. You can also view these by looking at NotesApp.csproj.

Note: The Visual Studio generation of the project adds an additional dependency of Microsoft.AspNetCore.Razor.Design. As we will not be creating rendered pages, this dependency can be removed.

The Controllers directory contains an auto-generated ValuesController.cs which we'll be updating/replacing in this tutorial.

The Properties directory and the launchSettings.json file within are not needed for this guide, and should be deleted.

The wwwroot directory is for publishing a static website. It will not be used in this guide and should be deleted.

The appsettings.json file is the default configuration file for the project. appsettings.Development.json, which will be rendered as child of appsettings.json, contains configurations used only in the Development environment. You can specify additional configuration files with appsettings.{enviroment}.json.

Program.cs contains the Main program, which runs a web server built with our Startup class. Startup.cs is where we'll define a lot of the setup for our database, our injectable classes, and various Cloud Foundry integrations.

Git Tag: setting-up-the-app

Up Next: Setting Up xUnit