Fai aspire orchestration

FAI Aspire Orchestration

Configures .NET Aspire to compose multi-container AI applications with automatic service discovery, environment variable injection, OpenTelemetry pipeline, and local Azure emulators. Solves the dev-setup friction where developers spend a day configuring connection strings that Aspire injects automatically.

When to Invoke

Signal	Example
Running multiple .NET services locally	API + worker + Redis + PostgreSQL
Hardcoded connection strings in appsettings	"Host=localhost;Port=5432" in source code
No local Azure emulators wired up	Azurite, Service Bus emulator not running
Distributed traces missing in local dev	No correlation between service calls

Workflow

Step 1 — AppHost Setup

// AppHost/Program.cs -- the orchestration entry point
var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Backing services -- Aspire manages lifecycle and connection strings
var redis      = builder.AddRedis("redis-cache");
var cosmos     = builder.AddAzureCosmosDB("cosmos").AddDatabase("chatdb");
var storage    = builder.AddAzureStorage("storage").AddBlobs("documents");
var servicebus = builder.AddAzureServiceBus("servicebus").AddQueue("embedding-jobs");

// AI service endpoints from environment (Managed Identity in prod, env vars locally)
var aoai   = builder.AddConnectionString("aoai-endpoint");
var search = builder.AddConnectionString("search-endpoint");

// Application projects -- Aspire injects all connection strings automatically
var api = builder.AddProject<Projects.Api>("api")
    .WithReference(redis)
    .WithReference(cosmos)
    .WithReference(aoai)
    .WithReference(search)
    .WithReference(servicebus);

var worker = builder.AddProject<Projects.EmbeddingWorker>("worker")
    .WithReference(storage)
    .WithReference(servicebus)
    .WithReference(aoai);

builder.Build().Run();

Step 2 — Service Discovery in Application Code

// api/Program.cs -- inject discovered endpoints, no hardcoded URLs
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.AddServiceDefaults();   // Aspire extension: health, OTEL, discovery

// Redis -- name matches the AppHost reference name
builder.AddRedisDistributedCache("redis-cache");

// Cosmos DB -- connection string injected from AppHost
builder.AddAzureCosmosClient("cosmos");

// HTTP client to worker -- resolved via Aspire service discovery
builder.Services.AddHttpClient<EmbeddingClient>(c =>
    c.BaseAddress = new Uri("https+http://worker"));   // Aspire resolves this at runtime

var app = builder.Build();
app.MapDefaultEndpoints();   // /health/live, /health/ready
app.Run();

Step 3 — OpenTelemetry Pipeline

// ServiceDefaults/Extensions.cs -- generated by Aspire, customise here
public static IHostApplicationBuilder AddServiceDefaults(
    this IHostApplicationBuilder builder)
{
    builder.ConfigureOpenTelemetry();
    builder.AddDefaultHealthChecks();
    builder.Services.AddServiceDiscovery();
    builder.Services.ConfigureHttpClientDefaults(http =>
    {
        http.AddStandardResilienceHandler();   // Retry + circuit breaker
        http.AddServiceDiscovery();
    });
    return builder;
}

// OpenTelemetry -- traces, metrics, logs to OTEL collector
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
    .WithTracing(t => t
        .AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
        .AddHttpClientInstrumentation()
        .AddRedisInstrumentation()
        .AddOtlpExporter())
    .WithMetrics(m => m
        .AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
        .AddRuntimeInstrumentation()
        .AddOtlpExporter());

Step 4 — Local Azure Emulators

// AppHost -- use emulators locally, real Azure services in CI/prod
var storage = builder.AddAzureStorage("storage")
    .RunAsEmulator(cfg => cfg
        .WithBlobPort(10000)
        .WithQueuePort(10001));

var servicebus = builder.AddAzureServiceBus("servicebus")
    .RunAsEmulator();   // Uses the Service Bus emulator Docker image

var cosmos = builder.AddAzureCosmosDB("cosmos")
    .RunAsEmulator(cfg => cfg.WithGatewayPort(8081));

Step 5 — Azure Container Apps Deployment

# Deploy Aspire manifest to Azure Container Apps
azd init --template aspire
azd env new prod
azd env set AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID <sub>
azd env set AZURE_LOCATION eastus2
azd up   # Provisions ACA environment, deploys all projects

# Verify running services
az containerapp list --resource-group rg-aspire-prod \
  --query "[].{name:name, url:properties.configuration.ingress.fqdn}" \
  --output table

Aspire Developer Dashboard

Aspire provides a local developer dashboard at http://localhost:15888:

View	What You See
Resources	All services with clickable endpoints and status
Console	Real-time structured logs with trace correlation
Traces	OpenTelemetry span waterfall across all services
Metrics	Request rate, error rate, duration per service
Environment	All injected environment variables per service

Service Discovery Reference

Pattern	Resolution
https+http://worker	HTTPS in prod, HTTP in dev; resolved by Aspire service discovery
redis-cache	Redis connection string injected via REDIS__CONNECTIONSTRING env var
cosmos	Cosmos connection string injected via ConnectionStrings__cosmos

WAF Alignment

Pillar	Contribution
Reliability	AddStandardResilienceHandler() adds retry + circuit breaker to all HTTP clients automatically
Operational Excellence	Automatic OTEL correlation enables distributed trace analysis without per-service code changes
Security	Service-to-service URLs injected at runtime -- no connection strings committed to source control
Performance Efficiency	Local emulators eliminate cloud round-trips during development; faster inner dev loop

Compatible Solution Plays

• Play 07 — Multi-Agent Service (.NET agent orchestration)
• Play 20 — Real-Time Analytics (event streaming pipeline)
• Play 37 — DevOps AI (CI/CD pipeline components)

Notes

• Aspire requires .NET 8+ and Docker Desktop (or Podman) for container management
• AddServiceDefaults() must be called as the first extension in every app project
• Use RunAsEmulator() for local dev; emulators are not started in CI unless explicitly configured
• WithReference() on a project creates both the connection string env var and a health dependency