--- title: "Integrate .NET Aspire with ASP.NET Zero" description: "ASP.NET Zero is the base solution for building robust and scalable web applications. Unlock your full potential today!" url: "https://aspnetzero.com/blog/integrate-aspire-with-aspnet-zero" image: "https://aspnetzero.com/Images/Blog/dotnet-aspire-mvc-integration-cover-image_071b.png" --- [Blog](https://aspnetzero.com/blog) # Integrate .NET Aspire with ASP.NET Zero 23 June 2025 5 min read [ASP.NET Core](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/topics/aspnet-core) [Architecture](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/topics/architecture) ![Integrate .NET Aspire with ASP.NET Zero](https://aspnetzero.com/Images/Blog/dotnet-aspire-mvc-integration-cover-image_071b.png) Share [X](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Faspnetzero.com%2Fblog%2Fintegrate-aspire-with-aspnet-zero&text=Integrate+.NET+Aspire+with+ASP.NET+Zero) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Faspnetzero.com%2Fblog%2Fintegrate-aspire-with-aspnet-zero) [Reddit](https://reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Faspnetzero.com%2Fblog%2Fintegrate-aspire-with-aspnet-zero&title=Integrate+.NET+Aspire+with+ASP.NET+Zero) [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitlink?u=https%3A%2F%2Faspnetzero.com%2Fblog%2Fintegrate-aspire-with-aspnet-zero&t=Integrate+.NET+Aspire+with+ASP.NET+Zero) # Integrate .NET Aspire with ASP.NET Zero .NET Aspire is a cloud-native application stack designed to simplify the development of distributed systems in .NET. It is getting popular among .NET developers and we wanted to try it with ASP.NET Zero's MVC UI. Let's get started and integrate .NET Aspire with ASP.NET Zero. ## Create Project First, login to your account on https://aspnetzero.com go to https://aspnetzero.com/download and create your project. While creating your project, select `ASP.NET CORE MVC & jQuery` as the project type. After creating your project, follow [Getting Started](https://docs.aspnetzero.com/aspnet-core-mvc/latest/Getting-Started-Core) document and be sure that your project runs successfully. ## Integrate .NET Aspire We will store our Aspire applicaiton under `aspire` folder. To do this, create a folder named `aspire` in the same level of `src` folder in your project. After that, run the following command to create .NET Aspire App Host application. ```bash dotnet new aspire-apphost -o ZeroAspireSample.AppHost ``` You can also create a service defaults project but, we will not use it in this sample to keep it simple. ### Add Reference to ASP.NET Zero Apps We will run following applications using .NET Aspire, so we need to add a project reference for these projects to our .NET Aspire App Host prohect; - MVC UI - API Host - Public Website - Migrator Project We want to basically run `SQL Server` with `Docker` using .NET Aspire. Run migrations on this database using `Migrator` project. And, finally we will run 3 Web UIs provided by ASP.NET Zero out of the box. #### SQL Server Before getting started, bu sure that you are running Docker on your PC. Also, if you don't have SQL Server Docker image, it might take some time to download and start it. Go to `AppHost.cs` file and add the code below. This will run SQL Server on the Docker and will create a database named `ZeroAspireSampleDb`. Since the SQL Server container is slow to start, we are using `ContainerLifetime.Persistent` to avoid restarts and this slowness for the future runs. ```csharp var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args); // SQL Server var sql = builder.AddSqlServer("ZeroAspireSample-SQL") .WithLifetime(ContainerLifetime.Persistent); // Database var db = sql.AddDatabase("ZeroAspireSampleDb"); ``` #### Database Migration If we run our .NET Aspire application, we will have a running SQL Server database. Let's run migrations on this database using .NET Aspire. To do this, add lines below to your `AppHost.cs` file; ```csharp // Migrator Project var migrator = builder.AddProject("Migrator") .WithEnvironment("ASPNETCORE_Docker_Enabled", "true") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WaitFor(db); ``` Here, we have a few special configurations. The first one is, we are setting `ASPNETCORE_Docker_Enabled` environment variable so ASP.NET Zero's Migrator applicationm will not wait for any user input and will exit immediately when it finishes its job. The second one is, we are setting `connectionName` when referencing the database to our Migrator application. Otherwise, .NET Aspire will use `ConnectionStrings__ZeroAspireSampleDb` and becasue of that, our Migrator app will not be able to use SQL Server running on .NET Aspire. Since we are also using `WaitFor`, .NET Aspire will not run our Migrator application until the database is up and ready. #### Web UIs We can now run our 3 web projects in order. To do that, add the code block below to your `AppHost.cs` file. ```csharp // Admin UI Project builder.AddProject("Admin-UI", launchProfileName: "ZeroAspireSample.Web") .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WaitFor(migrator); // API Host Project builder.AddProject("API-Host", launchProfileName: "ZeroAspireSample.Web.Host") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health"); // Public UI Project builder.AddProject("Public-UI", launchProfileName: "ZeroAspireSample.Web.FrontEnd") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health"); ``` Let's check details here so we can understand how .NET Aspire runs our web applications. We are using `launchProfileName` when running all 3 projects. Otherwise, .NET Aspire will run these projects using the default port 5000. However, if we provide `launchProfileName`, .NET Aspire will use the given profile to run our web application. This way, our apps will run on the ports we want them to run. We also have `WithHttpHealthCheck` so that .NET Aspire can understand if our application is running and healty. By default, health checks are disabled in ASP.NET Zero projects, so you need to enable it by going to appsettings.json file and setting `HealthChecksEnabled` to `true`. We also reference the database we created previously for all 3 web applications. Here is the final version of `AppHost.cs` file. ```csharp using Projects; var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args); // SQL Server var sql = builder.AddSqlServer("ZeroAspireSample-SQL") .WithLifetime(ContainerLifetime.Persistent); // Database var db = sql.AddDatabase("ZeroAspireSampleDb"); // Migrator Project var migrator = builder.AddProject("Migrator") .WithEnvironment("ASPNETCORE_Docker_Enabled", "true") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WaitFor(db); // Admin UI Project builder.AddProject("Admin-UI", launchProfileName: "ZeroAspireSample.Web") .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WaitFor(migrator); // API Host Project builder.AddProject("API-Host", launchProfileName: "ZeroAspireSample.Web.Host") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health"); // Public UI Project builder.AddProject("Public-UI", launchProfileName: "ZeroAspireSample.Web.FrontEnd") .WithReference(db, connectionName: "Default") .WithHttpHealthCheck("/health"); builder.Build().Run(); ``` ## .NET Aspire Dashboard ### Login to Dashboard For the first run, .NET Aspire will ask you to login to Dashboard. You will need a token to login. You can find this token in the logs when you run the AppHost project as shown below; ![.NET Aspire Dashboard Login](https://aspnetzero.com/images/Blog/dotnet-aspire-dashboard-login.jpg) ### View Dashboard After making all these changes, if we run the `ZeroAspireSample.AppHost` project, we will see a dashboard similar to the one below; ![.NET Aspire Dashboard First State](https://aspnetzero.com/images/Blog/dotnet-aspire-dashboard-first-state.jpg) .NET Aspire will run the SQL Server, will migrate the database by running the Migrator project and then will run the web projects. Finally, you should see a dashboard like this; ![.NET Aspire Dashboard Last State](https://aspnetzero.com/images/Blog/dotnet-aspire-dashboard-last-state.jpg) ## Ready to build? Get full source code, premium support, and enterprise-ready features with ASP.NET Zero. [See pricing plans](https://aspnetzero.com/pricing) ## Have questions before purchasing? 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[Schedule a meeting](https://aspnetzero.com/schedule-meeting) ## You might also like ### [Business Benefits of Using ASP.NET Zero for Enterprise Software Development](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/business-benefits-of-aspnetzero) 11 September 2026 ### [Common Mistakes and Errors When Hosting ASP.NET Core Apps](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/common-mistakes-and-errors-hosting-aspnet-core-apps) 26 August 2026 ### [Using AutoMapper After Migrating to Mapperly](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/using-automapper-after-migrating-to-mapperly) 04 August 2026 ## Recent posts ### [Business Benefits of Using ASP.NET Zero for Enterprise Software Development](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/business-benefits-of-aspnetzero) 11 September 2026 ### [Common Mistakes and Errors When Hosting ASP.NET Core Apps](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/common-mistakes-and-errors-hosting-aspnet-core-apps) 26 August 2026 ### [Using AutoMapper After Migrating to Mapperly](https://aspnetzero.com/blog/using-automapper-after-migrating-to-mapperly) 04 August 2026 ## Start building with ASP.NET Zero Full source code, premium support, Angular, React & MVC UI options. 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