Quickstart: Create an ASP.NET Core app with Azure App Configuration

Article
02/27/2024

In this quickstart, you'll use Azure App Configuration to externalize storage and management of your app settings for an ASP.NET Core app. ASP.NET Core builds a single, key-value-based configuration object using settings from one or more configuration providers. App Configuration offers a .NET configuration provider library. Therefore, you can use App Configuration as an extra configuration source for your app. If you have an existing app, to begin using App Configuration, you'll only need a few small changes to your app startup code.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create one for free.
An App Configuration store. Create a store.
.NET SDK 6.0 or later

Tip

The Azure Cloud Shell is a free, interactive shell that you can use to run the command line instructions in this article. It has common Azure tools preinstalled, including the .NET SDK. If you're logged in to your Azure subscription, launch your Azure Cloud Shell from shell.azure.com. You can learn more about Azure Cloud Shell by reading our documentation

Add key-values

Add the following key-values to the App Configuration store and leave Label and Content Type with their default values. For more information about how to add key-values to a store using the Azure portal or the CLI, go to Create a key-value.

Key	Value
TestApp:Settings:BackgroundColor	white
TestApp:Settings:FontColor	black
TestApp:Settings:FontSize	24
TestApp:Settings:Message	Data from Azure App Configuration

Create an ASP.NET Core web app

Use the .NET command-line interface (CLI) to create a new ASP.NET Core web app project. The Azure Cloud Shell provides these tools for you. They're also available across the Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms.

Run the following command to create an ASP.NET Core web app in a new TestAppConfig folder:

dotnet new webapp --output TestAppConfig --framework net6.0

Connect to the App Configuration store

Navigate into the project's directory TestAppConfig, and run the following command to add a Microsoft.Azure.AppConfiguration.AspNetCore NuGet package reference:
```
dotnet add package Microsoft.Azure.AppConfiguration.AspNetCore
```
Run the following command. The command uses Secret Manager to store a secret named ConnectionStrings:AppConfig, which stores the connection string for your App Configuration store. Replace the <your_connection_string> placeholder with your App Configuration store's connection string. You can find the connection string under Access Keys of your App Configuration store in the Azure portal.
```
dotnet user-secrets init
dotnet user-secrets set ConnectionStrings:AppConfig "<your_connection_string>"
```
Tip

Some shells will truncate the connection string unless it's enclosed in quotes. Ensure that the output of the dotnet user-secrets list command shows the entire connection string. If it doesn't, rerun the command, enclosing the connection string in quotes.

Secret Manager stores the secret outside of your project tree, which helps prevent the accidental sharing of secrets within source code. It's used only to test the web app locally. When the app is deployed to Azure like App Service, use the Connection strings, Application settings or environment variables to store the connection string. Alternatively, to avoid connection strings all together, you can connect to App Configuration using managed identities or your other Microsoft Entra identities.
Open Program.cs and add Azure App Configuration as an extra configuration source by calling the AddAzureAppConfiguration method.
```
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Retrieve the connection string
string connectionString = builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("AppConfig");

// Load configuration from Azure App Configuration
builder.Configuration.AddAzureAppConfiguration(connectionString);

// The rest of existing code in program.cs
// ... ...
```
This code will connect to your App Configuration store using a connection string and load all key-values that have no labels. For more information on the App Configuration provider, see the App Configuration provider API reference.

Read from the App Configuration store

In this example, you'll update a web page to display its content using the settings you configured in your App Configuration store.

Add a Settings.cs file at the root of your project directory. It defines a strongly typed Settings class for the configuration you're going to use. Replace the namespace with the name of your project.

namespace TestAppConfig
{
    public class Settings
    {
        public string BackgroundColor { get; set; }
        public long FontSize { get; set; }
        public string FontColor { get; set; }
        public string Message { get; set; }
    }
}

Bind the TestApp:Settings section in configuration to the Settings object.

Update Program.cs with the following code and add the TestAppConfig namespace at the beginning of the file.

using TestAppConfig;

// Existing code in Program.cs
// ... ...

builder.Services.AddRazorPages();

// Bind configuration "TestApp:Settings" section to the Settings object
builder.Services.Configure<Settings>(builder.Configuration.GetSection("TestApp:Settings"));

var app = builder.Build();

// The rest of existing code in program.cs
// ... ...

Open Index.cshtml.cs in the Pages directory, and update the IndexModel class with the following code. Add the using Microsoft.Extensions.Options namespace at the beginning of the file, if it's not already there.

public class IndexModel : PageModel
{
    private readonly ILogger<IndexModel> _logger;

    public Settings Settings { get; }

    public IndexModel(IOptionsSnapshot<Settings> options, ILogger<IndexModel> logger)
    {
        Settings = options.Value;
        _logger = logger;
    }
}

Open Index.cshtml in the Pages directory, and update the content with the following code.

@page
@model IndexModel
@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Home page";
}

<style>
    body {
        background-color: @Model.Settings.BackgroundColor;
    }

    h1 {
        color: @Model.Settings.FontColor;
        font-size: @(Model.Settings.FontSize)px;
    }
</style>

<h1>@Model.Settings.Message</h1>

Build and run the app locally

To build the app using the .NET CLI, navigate to the root directory of your project. Run the following command in the command shell:
```
dotnet build
```
After the build completes successfully, run the following command to run the web app locally:
```
dotnet run
```
The output of the dotnet run command contains two URLs. Open a browser and navigate to either one of these URLs to access your application. For example: https://localhost:5001.

If you're working in the Azure Cloud Shell, select the Web Preview button followed by Configure. When prompted to configure the port for preview, enter 5000, and select Open and browse.

The web page looks like this:

Clean up resources

If you don't want to continue using the resources created in this article, delete the resource group you created here to avoid charges.

Important

Deleting a resource group is irreversible. The resource group and all the resources in it are permanently deleted. Ensure that you don't accidentally delete the wrong resource group or resources. If you created the resources for this article inside a resource group that contains other resources you want to keep, delete each resource individually from its respective pane instead of deleting the resource group.

Sign in to the Azure portal, and select Resource groups.
In the Filter by name box, enter the name of your resource group.
In the result list, select the resource group name to see an overview.
Select Delete resource group.
You're asked to confirm the deletion of the resource group. Enter the name of your resource group to confirm, and select Delete.

After a few moments, the resource group and all its resources are deleted.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you:

Provisioned a new App Configuration store.
Connected to your App Configuration store using the App Configuration provider library.
Read your App Configuration store's key-values with the configuration provider library.
Displayed a web page using the settings you configured in your App Configuration store.

To learn how to configure your ASP.NET Core web app to dynamically refresh configuration settings, continue to the next tutorial.

Enable dynamic configuration

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