Apply migrations only in development

[raky291]

Hi,

In the following documentation it says Apply migrations at runtime is inappropriate, and it gives a list of the reasons.

And all the examples I've seen in .NET Aspire use a worker as a service to run migrations.

So how can I run that migration service only in development?

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var postgres = builder.AddPostgres("postgres");
var postgresdb = postgres.AddDatabase("postgresdb");

// How can I run migration only in development?
// if (development) {
var migration = builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireApp_Migration>("migration")
                       .WithReference(postgresdb)
                       .WaitFor(postgresdb);

builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireApp_ApiService>("apiservice")
       .WithReference(postgresdb)
       .WaitForCompletion(migration);

I would like to know if is possible to add more information on how to use .NET Aspire + EF Core + Migrations in production.

[davidfowl]

See https://github.com/davidfowl/TodoApp/blob/main/TodoApp.AppHost/Program.cs

[wilsongomes-swe]

@raky291 , exactly what the David put above, it is a great example; thanks for sharing that :)
I will just reinforce:

@raky291 , you can use isRunMode and/or IsPublishMode for understanding and creating conditionals for your purpose.

An example for executing it only in dev/localhost/run mode:

var postgres = builder.AddPostgres("postgres");
var postgresdb = postgres.AddDatabase("postgresdb");

IResourceBuilder migration = null;  // Initialize as null

// Conditionally set up the migration only in development mode
if (builder.ExecutionContext.IsRunMode)
{
    migration = builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireApp_Migration>("migration")
                       .WithReference(postgresdb)
                       .WaitFor(postgresdb);
}

builder.AddProject<Projects.AspireApp_ApiService>("apiservice")
       .WithReference(postgresdb)
       .WaitForCompletion(migration);  // WaitForCompletion handles null gracefully

You can understand it better by the docs link below:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/aspire/fundamentals/app-host-overview?tabs=docker#execution-context

Regarding how to handle migrations in production, I think it is more related to the company guidelines and policies than Aspire or tooling itself.

I hope it helps.