Guided: Getting Started with EF Core 10

Table of Contents

1. Challenge

   Introduction

   Welcome to this Code Lab on building a data access layer with EF Core 10! In this lab, you'll create the core components needed to connect a .NET application to a database. You will define data models, configure a database context, and implement a service to handle all Create, Read, Update, and Delete (CRUD) operations.

   Use SQLite as your database. SQLite is a lightweight, serverless database engine, so you can focus on EF Core concepts without the overhead of setting up a traditional database server.

   info> If you get stuck, you can find solution files for each task in the solution folder of your filetree.

   This lab experience was developed by the Pluralsight team using Forge, an internally developed AI tool utilizing Gemini technology. All sections were verified by human experts for accuracy prior to publication. For issue reporting, please contact us.

2. Challenge

   Step 2: Project Setup and Modeling

   Before you can work with data, you need to set up your project with the right tools and define the structure of your data. This involves adding the required EF Core libraries to your project and creating a C# class, known as an 'entity,' to represent a contact in your database.

3. Challenge

   Step 3: Creating the DbContext

   The DbContext is a central class in EF Core. It acts as a bridge between your entity classes and the database. In this step, you will create your own DbContext and tell it which entities it should manage.

4. Challenge

   Step 4: Implementing Create and Read Operations

   Now that your models and context are defined, it's time to bring them to life. First, register your DbContext and ContactService with the application's service container. This is a key pattern in modern .NET called Dependency Injection. Then, implement the 'C' (Create) and 'R' (Read) parts of CRUD, allowing you to add new contacts and retrieve them.

5. Challenge

   Step 5: Implementing Update, Delete, and Querying

   In this final step, you'll complete the data service by implementing the remaining CRUD operations: Update and Delete. You will also write a more advanced query to search for contacts by name, demonstrating the power and flexibility of LINQ with EF Core.

6. Challenge

   Step 6: Verify Your API from the Command Line

   In this step, you'll run a command-line smoke test that starts your API in the background and exercises it with real HTTP requests. This gives you an end-to-end verification that your application runs, routes correctly, and performs database operations successfully.

   1. Open scripts/api-smoke-test.sh and review what it does (start the API, wait for readiness, run Create/Read/Update/Search/Delete requests, then shut the API down).
   2. Run the script:

   bash scripts/api-smoke-test.sh
   

   If the script fails, it prints the HTTP call that failed and the API output log to help you diagnose the problem. Congratulations on completing the lab! You set up EF Core with SQLite, modeled an entity, created a DbContext, configured dependency injection, and implemented a full CRUD service with a searchable query—then validated everything end-to-end by running a live API smoke test from the command line.