ARG .NET

The ARG way of building ASP.NET Core back ends on the current .NET LTS. Business rules live in a rich domain model, every feature is a small self-contained use case, and every write is tested against a real database.

Installation

npx skills add ARG-Software/arg-agent-skills --skill arg-dotnet

What it does

  • The solution is split into Domain, Application, Infrastructure and API projects, and architecture tests (NetArchTest) fail the build when a dependency points the wrong way.
  • Entities and value objects hold the business rules and return explicit Result values instead of throwing exceptions. Failures map to consistent HTTP ProblemDetails responses at the API edge.
  • Each feature is one command or query with its own handler and validator (vertical slices). Domain events go through a transactional outbox, so an event is never lost and never published for a failed transaction.
  • Integration and functional tests run against real databases in containers with Testcontainers, and CI, Docker images, secrets and versioned releases follow the ARG workflow.

Used when

The skill applies when scaffolding or extending a .NET solution, adding an entity, value object, domain event, command, query, handler, repository or endpoint, configuring EF Core, authentication, caching or health checks, writing unit, architecture or integration tests, or setting up CI and Docker.

This skill is distilled from ARG's .NET reference solution, a booking platform built with domain-driven design, CQRS, an outbox, Keycloak authentication and Testcontainers. Three things in the original had aged: it targeted .NET 8, it relied on MediatR, which is now commercially licensed, and it serialized the outbox in an unsafe way. The skill fixes all three, targets the current LTS and asks you which mediator option to use.