ASP.NET Core, patterns, and AI context
A varied .NET roundup covering middleware, MediatR, DDD, distributed patterns, tenant-aware auth, performance, and AI prompt design.
Jasen's top three picks
- 1 From Spec to Santa: My C#‑Powered Christmas Story Generator Experiment
Alexandre Nedelec's blog
A fun holiday build with C# and AI to start things off.
- 2 MediatR Implementation: The Industry-Standard Way to Build Serious .NET APIs
Medium
A solid refresher on why MediatR and middleware still matter in real APIs.
- 3 Event-Driven Architecture Without the Chaos
Medium
Good cautionary reading on event-driven and clean-architecture overreach.
Editor's note
I pulled together a pretty mixed issue this time: some practical ASP.NET Core pieces, a few architecture deep-dives, and a couple of AI-adjacent posts. The middleware and allocation articles are especially useful if you’re tuning request pipelines, while the DDD and distributed patterns pieces are good refreshers for larger systems.
Today's articles
From Spec to Santa: My C#‑Powered Christmas Story Generator Experiment
Alexandre Nedelec's blog
In this article, I will explain how I built a website to generate Christmas Stories my almost 5-year-old daughter using C# and AI related technologies (GitHub Spec Kit, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft.Exten...
Topics: C# GitHub Copilot OpenAI
Read articleMediatR Implementation: The Industry-Standard Way to Build Serious .NET APIs
Medium
Mastering ASP.NET Core Middleware — How Every Request Flows
Topics: ASP.NET Core MediatR
Read articleEvent-Driven Architecture Without the Chaos
Medium
When Events Simplify Systems — and When They Destroy Them
Topics: Design Patterns Event Sourcing
Read articleWhy Most Clean Architecture Implementations Fail in .NET
Medium
Clean Architecture is not hard. Misunderstanding it is.
Topics: Clean Architecture .NET Core
Read articleAnatomy of an API: an existential crisis with AsExisting()
Bug Repellent
A blog post dissecting Aspire's RunAsExisting, PublishAsExisting, and AsExisting APIs, why the naming haunts me, and what I would've done differently if I could turn back time.
Topics: .NET Aspire
Read articleAsync Isn’t Magic
Medium
It’s basically state machines, logical flows, and a little AsyncLocal.
Read articleCustom Middleware in ASP.NET Core (Beginner Friendly Guide)
Medium
If you are new to ASP.NET Core, the word “Middleware” may sound confusing. But don’t worry — after reading this article, you will clearly…
Topics: ASP.NET Core .NET Core
Read articleIEnumerable vs IQueryable in .NET: A Performance Perspective
Medium
One of the most overlooked performance decisions in .NET applications happens quietly — right at the LINQ interface level.
Topics: .NET Core Performance
Read articleAuthentication in .NET — Part 11: Tenant-Aware Identity & Data Isolation
Medium
In Part 10, we secured Web APIs using policy-based scopes issued by an Identity Provider. Now Part 11, we go one level deeper and address…
Topics: Authentication Authorization
Read article12 Essential Distributed System Design Patterns Every Architect Should Know
Dev Tips
Learn the 12 most important distributed system design patterns that every software architect needs to master: API Gateway, Point To Point Async Integration, Publish/Subscribe, OutBox, CQRS, Saga, Side
Topics: CQRS Design Patterns
Read articleModeling a Domain With Domain-Driven Design From Scratch
Medium
A Practical, Code-First Guide (DDD Mega Series — Part 1/3)
Topics: Domain-Driven Design Design Patterns
Read articlePrompt Noise Is Killing Your AI Accuracy: How To Optimize Context For Grounded Output | Build5Nines
build5nines.com
The most common reason an AI system "hallucinates" in production isn't that the model is dumb. It's that we're drowning it.
Topics: OpenAI Semantic Kernel
Read articleThis One Line of ASP.NET Core Code Allocates More Than You Think
Medium
(And why your API burns memory before business logic even starts) Continue reading on Towards Dev »
Topics: ASP.NET Core Performance
Read article