AspireForm 0.5.0

AspireForm

Declarative construction and configuration of .NET Aspire applications — Infrastructure-as-Code ideas (Terraform) and declarative orchestration (Docker Compose) applied to scaffolding and evolving an Aspire solution.

You describe the desired shape of your app in aspireform.yaml (or aspireform.jsonc); AspireForm reconciles that against what is on disk and applies the difference.

Status

v0.3.0 — Plugin loader. AspireForm now supports external NuGet plugins; the first one (AspireForm.Plugin.Redis) is available. More verticals (Mailpit, Hangfire, DAB, auth × 3, reporting, ETL) arrive in Plans 2.1–2.9.

Install / run

AspireForm is a zero-install .NET tool. With the .NET 10 SDK present:

dnx AspireForm config
dnx AspireForm doctor

dnx resolves the latest published version on each run, so the tool is always current.

Commands

Use with an agent (MCP server)

AspireForm includes an MCP server that exposes its verbs as tools, so AI agents can chat-construct an Aspire app:

aspireform mcp                         # stdio (default — for Claude Desktop / Claude Code / Aspire CLI)
aspireform mcp --http --port 5050      # localhost HTTP transport
aspireform mcp --project-dir ./myapp   # set the default projectDir for tool calls

Claude Code config snippet

Add to ~/.claude/mcp.json (or the project-scoped equivalent):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aspireform": {
      "command": "dnx",
      "args": ["AspireForm", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tool surface

14 low-level tools mirror the CLI verbs: aspireform_new, aspireform_add, aspireform_config, aspireform_plan, aspireform_apply, aspireform_destroy, aspireform_import, aspireform_state_list, aspireform_state_show, aspireform_doctor, aspireform_plugin_list, aspireform_plugin_install, aspireform_plugin_update, aspireform_plugin_remove.

3 curated macros orchestrate common recipes: scaffold_aspire_app_with_data, add_cache_layer, add_authentication.

Security: the HTTP transport binds localhost only and has no authentication in this version. Do not expose it on a public interface.

Use the entity builder

aspireform ui opens a local Blazor Server app where you author your EF Core entity classes — properties, relationships, attributes — and see DAB exposure toggled live. The same operations are available as MCP tools so agents can drive the model alongside humans.

aspireform ui                       # default port 5050, opens browser
aspireform ui --port 5051           # explicit port
aspireform ui --no-launch           # skip the browser auto-launch
aspireform ui --project-dir ./myapp # set the AspireForm project root

Code-first authoring

Reference the AspireForm.Annotations package from your entity project, then decorate entities:

using AspireForm.Annotations;

[DabExpose]
[DabPermission("anonymous", "read")]
public class Book
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; } = "";
}

When the ef-data block in your aspireform.yaml points at this project (inputs.projectPath), aspireform plan emits both:

• a generated DbContext with DbSet<Book>, and
• a dab-config.json exposing Book via REST/GraphQL with the declared permissions.

Entity-level MCP tools

12 new MCP tools (registered alongside the existing 17) cover full CRUD: aspireform_entity_{list,show,create,delete}, aspireform_property_{add,remove,rename}, aspireform_attribute_{set,clear}, aspireform_relationship_{add,remove}, aspireform_dbcontext_list.

Security: the UI binds localhost only and has no authentication. Dev-tool use only.

Configuration

A minimal aspireform.yaml:

aspireform:
  version: 1
  project: MyApp
  apphost: ./MyApp.AppHost
resources:
  sql:
    type: sqlserver
    aspireName: sql
    databases: [appdb]

Per-environment overrides go in aspireform.<env>.yaml and are layered with --env <name>.

Plugins

AspireForm supports external plugins that contribute new block types (Resources or Modules) via NuGet packages. The first available plugin is Redis:

When you reference an unknown block type in aspireform.yaml (e.g. type: redis), AspireForm auto-restores the matching plugin from NuGet on the next plan or apply. The resolved (name, version) pair is recorded in .aspireform/plugins.lock.yaml (committed to git).

Script plugins (.cs files)

For quick local extension without packaging, drop a .cs file into .aspireform/scripts/. AspireForm compiles it via Roslyn into the same plugin context as NuGet plugins. Use #:package <id>@<version> directives at the top of the file to declare NuGet dependencies.

#:package Some.Helper.Lib@1.2.3

using AspireForm.Providers;

public sealed class MyVerticalProvider : IProvider
{
    public string Type => "my-vertical";
    public BlockKind Kind => BlockKind.Module;
    public ProviderPlan Plan(PlanContext context) => new() { /* ... */ };
}

The compiler caches by source-hash at .aspireform/scripts/.cache/<sha256>/ — unchanged scripts skip recompile.

Documentation

• Design spec: docs/superpowers/specs/
• Research notes: docs/research/
• Implementation plans: docs/superpowers/plans/