Aspire

# 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.

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References

| Reference | When to load |

|---|---|

| [CLI Reference](references/cli-reference.md) | Command flags, options, or detailed usage |

| [MCP Server](references/mcp-server.md) | Setting up MCP for AI assistants, available tools |

| [Integrations Catalog](references/integrations-catalog.md) | Discovering integrations via MCP tools, wiring patterns |

| [Polyglot APIs](references/polyglot-apis.md) | Method signatures, chaining options, language-specific patterns |

| [Architecture](references/architecture.md) | DCP internals, resource model, service discovery, networking, telemetry |

| [Dashboard](references/dashboard.md) | Dashboard features, standalone mode, GenAI Visualizer |

| [Deployment](references/deployment.md) | Docker, Kubernetes, Azure Container Apps, App Service |

| [Testing](references/testing.md) | Integration tests against the AppHost |

| [Troubleshooting](references/troubleshooting.md) | Diagnostic codes, common errors, and fixes |

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1. Researching Aspire Documentation

The Aspire team ships an **MCP server** that provides documentation tools directly inside your AI assistant. See [MCP Server](references/mcp-server.md) 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 |

These tools were added in [PR #14028](https://github.com/dotnet/aspire/pull/14028). To update: `aspire update --self --channel daily`.

For more on this approach, see David Pine's post: https://davidpine.dev/posts/aspire-docs-mcp-tools/

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 |

For general docs queries on 13.1, use **Context7** as your primary source (see below).

Fallback: Context7

Use **Context7** (`mcp_context7`) when the Aspire MCP docs tools are unavailable (13.1) or the MCP server isn't running:

**Step 1 — Resolve the library ID** (one-time per session):

Call `mcp_context7_resolve-library-id` with `libraryName: ".NET Aspire"`.

| Rank | Library ID | Use when |

|---|---|---|

| 1 | `/microsoft/aspire.dev` | Primary source. Guides, integrations, CLI reference, deployment. |

| 2 | `/dotnet/aspire` | API internals, source-level implementation details. |

| 3 | `/communitytoolkit/aspire` | Non-Microsoft polyglot integrations (Go, Java, Node.js, Ollama). |

**Step 2 — Query docs:**

libraryId: "/microsoft/aspire.dev", query: "Python integration AddPythonApp service discovery"
libraryId: "/communitytoolkit/aspire", query: "Golang Java Node.js community integrations"

Fallback: GitHub search (when Context7 is also unavailable)

Search the official docs repo on GitHub:

- **Docs repo:** `microsoft/aspire.dev` — path: `src/frontend/src/content/docs/`

- **Source repo:** `dotnet/aspire`

- **Samples repo:** `dotnet/aspire-samples`

- **Community integrations:** `