| name | aspire |
| description | Aspire skill covering the Aspire CLI, AppHost orchestration, service discovery, integrations, MCP server, VS Code extension, Dev Containers, GitHub Codespaces, templates, dashboard, and deployment. Use when the user asks to create, run, debug, configure, deploy, or troubleshoot an Aspire distributed application. |
Aspire — Polyglot Distributed-App Orchestration
Aspire is a code-first, polyglot toolchain for building observable, production-ready distributed applications. It orchestrates containers, executables, and cloud resources from a single AppHost project — regardless of whether the workloads are C#, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, Java, Rust, Bun, Deno, or PowerShell.
Mental model: The AppHost is a conductor — it doesn't play the instruments, it tells every service when to start, how to find each other, and watches for problems.
Detailed reference material lives in the references/ folder — load on demand.
References
| Reference | When to load |
|---|
| CLI Reference | Command flags, options, or detailed usage |
| MCP Server | Setting up MCP for AI assistants, available tools |
| Integrations Catalog | Discovering integrations via MCP tools, wiring patterns |
| Polyglot APIs | Method signatures, chaining options, language-specific patterns |
| Architecture | DCP internals, resource model, service discovery, networking, telemetry |
| Dashboard | Dashboard features, standalone mode, GenAI Visualizer |
| Deployment | Docker, Kubernetes, Azure Container Apps, App Service |
| Testing | Integration tests against the AppHost |
| Troubleshooting | Diagnostic codes, common errors, and fixes |
1. Researching Aspire Documentation
The Aspire team ships an MCP server that provides documentation tools directly inside your AI assistant. See MCP Server for setup details.
Aspire CLI 13.2+ (recommended — has built-in docs search)
If running Aspire CLI 13.2 or later (aspire --version), the MCP server includes docs search tools:
| Tool | Description |
|---|
list_docs | Lists all available documentation from aspire.dev |
search_docs | Performs weighted lexical search across indexed documentation |
get_doc | Retrieves a specific document by its slug |
Aspire CLI 13.1 (integration tools only)
On 13.1, the MCP server provides integration lookup but not docs search:
| Tool | Description |
|---|
list_integrations | Lists available Aspire hosting integrations |
get_integration_docs | Gets documentation for a specific integration package |
Fallback: Context7
Use Context7 (mcp_context7) when the Aspire MCP docs tools are unavailable (13.1) or the MCP server isn't running.
2. Prerequisites & Install
curl -sSL https://aspire.dev/install.sh | bash
irm https://aspire.dev/install.ps1 | iex
aspire --version
dotnet new install Aspire.ProjectTemplates
3. AppHost Quick Start (Polyglot)
var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
var redis = builder.AddRedis("cache");
var postgres = builder.AddPostgres("pg").AddDatabase("catalog");
var api = builder.AddProject<Projects.CatalogApi>("api")
.WithReference(postgres).WithReference(redis);
var ml = builder.AddPythonApp("ml-service", "../ml-service", "main.py")
.WithHttpEndpoint(targetPort: 8000).WithReference(redis);
var web = builder.AddViteApp("web", "../frontend")
.WithHttpEndpoint(targetPort: 5173).WithReference(api);
builder.Build().Run();
4. Core Concepts
| Concept | Key point |
|---|
| Run vs Publish | aspire run = local dev (DCP engine). aspire publish = generate deployment manifests. |
| Service discovery | Automatic via env vars: ConnectionStrings__<name>, services__<name>__http__0 |
| Resource lifecycle | DAG ordering — dependencies start first. .WaitFor() gates on health checks. |
| Integrations | 144+ across 13 categories. Hosting package (AppHost) + Client package (service). |
| Dashboard | Real-time logs, traces, metrics, GenAI visualizer. Runs automatically with aspire run. |
| Deployment | Docker, Kubernetes, Azure Container Apps, Azure App Service. |
5. Key URLs
