You signed in with another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You signed out in another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.You switched accounts on another tab or window. Reload to refresh your session.Dismiss alert
Copy file name to clipboardExpand all lines: src/frontend/src/content/docs/get-started/faq.mdx
+22-22Lines changed: 22 additions & 22 deletions
Display the source diff
Display the rich diff
Original file line number
Diff line number
Diff line change
@@ -5,25 +5,25 @@ description: Answers to common questions about Aspire, including the AppHost, da
5
5
6
6
This page answers common questions about what Aspire is, how it fits into your workflow, what it can do for you, and how it compares to other technologies.
7
7
8
-
###What is Aspire?
8
+
## What is Aspire?
9
9
10
10
Aspire is an agent-ready, code-first tool to compose, debug, and deploy any distributed app. It makes it easier to build, run, debug, and deploy services across any language, stack, or cloud. It's free and open source at [github.com/microsoft/aspire](https://github.com/microsoft/aspire).
11
11
12
12
Its central idea is the **AppHost**: the place where you declare your services, resources, dependencies, endpoints, parameters, and relationships in code instead of scattering that information across many config files. AppHosts can be written in **C# or TypeScript**, which makes Aspire a strong fit for polyglot teams.
13
13
14
14
Learn more: [Build your first Aspire app](/get-started/first-app/)
15
15
16
-
###What problem does Aspire solve?
16
+
## What problem does Aspire solve?
17
17
18
18
Aspire makes multi-service development easier to understand and operate. It reduces the friction of working on connected services. It gives teams one place to model the app, start related services together, wire dependencies, inspect telemetry, and reduce configuration drift across development and deployment workflows.
19
19
20
-
###What is the AppHost, and why is it so important?
20
+
## What is the AppHost, and why is it so important?
21
21
22
22
The AppHost is Aspire's control center. It's a map for all of the pieces of your distributed app and the **single source of truth** for your app's architecture: projects, containers, databases, endpoints, volumes, parameters, and the relationships between them. The same AppHost model is used across inner-loop development, deployment, and CI/CD workflows.
23
23
24
24
Learn more: [What is the AppHost?](/get-started/app-host/)
25
25
26
-
###What does Aspire actually give me out of the box?
26
+
## What does Aspire actually give me out of the box?
27
27
28
28
Aspire brings together four especially useful capabilities:
29
29
@@ -36,63 +36,63 @@ Every part of the lifecycle can be inspected and automated by humans or agents.
###What kinds of integrations does Aspire provide?
39
+
## What kinds of integrations does Aspire provide?
40
40
41
41
Aspire provides integrations for many of the building blocks that show up in real systems: databases, caches, messaging systems, storage services, observability backends, and cloud resources. These integrations help you model resources in the AppHost, connect services with references, and inject the right configuration such as connection strings, URLs, and environment variables automatically.
###How do Aspire integrations fit with existing apps?
45
+
## How do Aspire integrations fit with existing apps?
46
46
47
47
Integrations are additive. You can introduce them one by one as your system needs them, whether your app is new or already running in production. A common pattern is to model a shared resource such as PostgreSQL, Redis, or a message broker in the AppHost and then reference it from the services that need it.
The dashboard is the most visible part of the developer experience, but it is not the whole story. When you run an Aspire app, the dashboard provides real-time visibility into resources, logs, metrics, traces, configuration, and health so you can understand how the system is behaving.
**No.** Aspire is designed to complement the technologies you already use rather than requiring a rewrite into one framework or one cloud. It can orchestrate apps across many languages like C#, Python, JavaScript, Node.js, Go, and Java, and it supports a TypeScript or C# AppHost. For deployment, it works through configured targets and integrations instead of requiring one proprietary hosting model.
60
60
61
61
Learn more: [What is the AppHost?](/get-started/app-host/), [Deployment overview](/deployment/overview/#compute-environments)
62
62
63
-
###Is Aspire only for .NET apps?
63
+
## Is Aspire only for .NET apps?
64
64
65
65
**No.** .NET is an especially strong experience in Aspire, but the app model is broader than one framework or runtime. Aspire is designed to coordinate services across multiple stacks, and the TypeScript AppHost makes it a natural fit for existing JavaScript and TypeScript applications as well.
**Yes.** A TypeScript AppHost (`apphost.ts`) is a first-class option for existing JavaScript and TypeScript applications. That experience uses commands such as `aspire init --language typescript` and AppHost APIs such as `addNodeApp`, `addViteApp`, and `addJavaScriptApp`.
**No.** Aspire can be adopted incrementally. You can add an AppHost to an existing codebase, register the resources you already have, and bring the system under Aspire orchestration step by step without rewriting everything at once.
The simplest confident answer is: **Docker Compose is container-first YAML; Aspire is app-model-first code.** Compose focuses on describing containers and their runtime settings. Aspire focuses on describing the whole distributed application and its relationships, then layering in orchestration, service discovery, integrations, telemetry, and dashboard-driven insight.
84
84
85
85
That said, Docker is one of the many computing environments Aspire supports and can publish Docker Compose artifacts.
Aspire is designed to work with AI agents and copilots as naturally as it works with human developers. Its CLI is interactive and machine-readable, and its built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server exposes app resources, logs, traces, and documentation to AI agents. Because the AppHost is a code-first, structured model — not scattered YAML or config files — agents can read your app topology, diagnose issues from traces, and modify your architecture programmatically. The `aspire agent` command manages AI agent environment configuration.
Kubernetes is a production orchestration platform. Aspire is an application model and developer workflow that helps you describe, connect, and observe your services. Aspire is not a one-for-one Kubernetes replacement; it is an application composition experience that can feed real deployment targets, like Kubernetes.
###How does Aspire compare to Dapr or other service-runtime frameworks?
126
+
## How does Aspire compare to Dapr or other service-runtime frameworks?
127
127
128
128
Dapr provides runtime building blocks such as pub/sub, bindings, state, and service invocation. Aspire focuses on application composition, orchestration, integration wiring, and observability. They address different layers of the problem and can be used together when that combination makes sense.
###Does Aspire replace Docker Compose, Kubernetes, or my deployment platform?
132
+
## Does Aspire replace Docker Compose, Kubernetes, or my deployment platform?
133
133
134
134
**No.** Aspire helps you model, run, observe, publish, and deploy distributed apps, but you still choose the actual compute environments and deployment targets that fit your platform strategy.
**No.** The deployment manifest is deprecated. The current path is to use `aspire publish` and `aspire deploy` with supported deployment targets and workflows.
0 commit comments