servicestack-refactoring-review

name	servicestack-refactoring-review
description	Reviews and refactors code to enforce ServiceStack idioms and eliminate MVC / ASP.NET Core leakage.

ServiceStack Refactoring & Review

Use this skill when reviewing existing codebases or refactoring to better align with ServiceStack's message-based architecture.

Identifying MVC Leakage

Watch out for patterns that belong in MVC/WebAPI but not in ServiceStack:

• Attribute Overload: Using excessive MVC-specific attributes on DTOs.
• Controller-like Logic: services that try to handle routing or status codes manually instead of throwing exceptions.
• Manual URL Building: Using string concatenation instead of typed clients or ToUrl().

Enforcing ServiceStack Idioms

• DTO-First: Move any logic out of DTOs.
• Implicit Dependencies: Use base.Db, base.Cache, etc., instead of manually resolving them from IoC everywhere.
• ResponseStatus: Ensure all response DTOs include this property.

Refactoring Steps

1. Extract DTOs: If requests are "blurry," define clear, discrete Request/Response DTOs.
2. Service Realignment: Move implementation logic from AppHost or Controllers into ServiceInterface classes.
3. Validation Migration: Move manual if checks into FluentValidation classes.
4. OrmLite Adoption: Replace complex ORM logic with clean, POCO-friendly OrmLite queries.

Best Practices

• Readability: Code should read like a set of messages and their handlers.
• Consistency: Maintain a unified style across all services in the codebase.
• Metadata Visibility: Ensure all APIs are visible on the /metadata page after refactoring.
• Typed Client Readiness: If a service can't be easily called by a typed C# client, it needs refactoring.