dotnet
Add comprehensive PostgreSQL EF Core migrations tutorial for .NET Aspire
This PR addresses the critical gap in .NET Aspire documentation by providing a comprehensive tutorial for PostgreSQL Entity Framework Core migrations - something that has been repeatedly requested by the community but was missing from the documentation.
What this adds
New Tutorial: postgresql-ef-core-migrations-tutorial.md - A complete 314-line, step-by-step guide that covers:
- Setting up .NET Aspire projects with PostgreSQL and Entity Framework Core from scratch
- Creating and configuring EF Core models and database contexts
- Actually creating migrations (not just applying existing ones) - the core missing piece
- Building and configuring migration services for automatic schema deployment
- PostgreSQL-specific patterns and troubleshooting scenarios
- Complete working application with data persistence
Complete Working Code Examples: All tutorial code is fully functional with 9 supporting files including:
- Entity models with PostgreSQL-optimized configurations
- DbContext setup for PostgreSQL
- Migration service implementation for automatic schema updates
- App host orchestration with proper service dependencies
- Complete Blazor UI for testing the end-to-end workflow
Why this was needed
The existing documentation had:
- A general EF Core migrations guide focused on SQL Server
- PostgreSQL integration docs without migration coverage
- No end-to-end tutorial showing how to create migrations (only apply existing ones)
This left developers unable to figure out how to:
- Generate PostgreSQL migrations in .NET Aspire projects
- Set up migration services for PostgreSQL
- Handle PostgreSQL-specific differences from SQL Server examples
Key differentiators from existing content
Unlike the existing SQL Server tutorial, this focuses specifically on:
- PostgreSQL container orchestration patterns
- PostgreSQL-specific EF Core configuration
- Handling connection string challenges with containerized PostgreSQL
- PostgreSQL naming conventions and data type considerations
- Common PostgreSQL + .NET Aspire troubleshooting scenarios
The tutorial provides the "real end-to-end tutorial that shows how to actually create migrations" that was explicitly requested in the issue, with working code that developers can follow from start to finish.
Fixes #1581.
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Internal previews
| 📄 File | 🔗 Preview link |
|---|---|
| docs/database/postgresql-ef-core-migrations-tutorial.md | Tutorial: PostgreSQL migrations with Entity Framework Core in .NET Aspire |
| docs/toc.yml | docs/toc |
