Editor's note
I pulled together another intentionally mixed issue here, which is usually where the best practical reads show up. The MCP request visualization piece stood out because observability for coding agents is quickly becoming real engineering work, not novelty. I also liked the architectural testing and startup configuration validation articles because they address the kind of guardrails that keep mature .NET systems from drifting.
AI agents, architecture, and EF Core
Jasen Fici
April 21, 2026
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Today's Articles
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Jasen's take on today's picks
Visualizing Claude Code MCP Requests with Coding Agent Explorer
Useful look at making MCP traffic visible, which matters if you're trying to reason about what an AI coding agent is actually doing.
Architectural tests are one of the better ways to keep intended boundaries from eroding as a .NET codebase grows.
How to send Slack messages using Azure Logic Apps: built-in connector vs Slack APIs
A practical comparison that should help anyone choosing between Logic Apps convenience and the flexibility of calling Slack APIs directly.
Mark Heath tackles SOLID through refactoring, which is exactly the lens that makes these principles useful in real legacy code.
Suppressing Roslyn Analyzer Warnings Programmatically using DiagnosticSuppressor
Handy Roslyn deep dive showing how DiagnosticSuppressor can tame noisy analyzer output without just disabling rules outright.
Your Migration’s Source of Truth: Why the Assessment Phase Changes Everything in .NET Modernization
The assessment-first argument is solid because modernization projects usually go sideways when nobody agrees on the true starting point.
Validate .NET configuration on startup
Fail-fast configuration validation is low drama and high value, and this piece walks through both annotations and FluentValidation options.
510: AI Agents: Claws, Copilot, GUI vs CLI Debate
More conversation than code, but the GUI versus CLI debate around agents is timely and worth hearing from experienced .NET voices.
Entity Framework Core: Perhaps the Most Beloved Tool of the .NET World
A broad EF Core appreciation piece that may be most useful for newer developers getting oriented around why the tool is so widely adopted.
OOP in C# — Deeper Understanding for Freshers
Beginner-focused OOP refresher covering the fundamentals that still underpin everyday C# design work.
Agent Skills in .NET: Three Ways to Author, One Provider to Run Them
Interesting update from the agent framework side, especially the mix of file, inline C#, and class-based skill authoring.
JWT Authentication with .Introduction to NET To the layperson.
A basic JWT authentication introduction aimed at newcomers rather than developers looking for advanced ASP.NET security details.
C# .NET — Upgrading a Mediator Pipeline Project with Kiro Spec-First
An upgrade story mixing MediatR, .NET 10, and a spec-first workflow, which makes it a notable experiment even beyond the tooling angle.
Clean Architecture in .NET 10: Why It Beats N-Layer and How to Wire Projects Correctly
Clean Architecture versus N-Layer is familiar territory, but the project wiring guidance should help developers avoid dependency tangles early.