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net8.0

Azure Cosmos DB resource types for Aspire.

Published
Mar 31, 2026
6mo ago
Total Downloads
1.8M
1,788,784

Install

dotnet add package Aspire.Hosting.Azure.CosmosDB --version 13.2.1
ProductVersions
.NET
net8.0

README

Aspire.Hosting.Azure.Cosmos library

Provides extension methods and resource definitions for an Aspire AppHost to configure Azure CosmosDB.

Getting started

Prerequisites

Install the package

In your AppHost project, install the Aspire Azure Cosmos DB Hosting library with NuGet:

dotnet add package Aspire.Hosting.Azure.CosmosDB

Configure Azure Provisioning for local development

Adding Azure resources to the Aspire application model will automatically enable development-time provisioning for Azure resources so that you don't need to configure them manually. Provisioning requires a number of settings to be available via .NET configuration. Set these values in user secrets in order to allow resources to be configured automatically.

{
    "Azure": {
      "SubscriptionId": "<your subscription id>",
      "ResourceGroupPrefix": "<prefix for the resource group>",
      "Location": "<azure location>"
    }
}

NOTE: Developers must have Owner access to the target subscription so that role assignments can be configured for the provisioned resources.

Usage example

Then, in the AppHost.cs file of AppHost, add a Cosmos DB connection and consume the connection using the following methods:

var cosmosdb = builder.AddAzureCosmosDB("cdb").AddCosmosDatabase("cosmosdb");

var myService = builder.AddProject<Projects.MyService>()
                       .WithReference(cosmosdb);

The WithReference method passes that connection information into a connection string named cosmosdb in the MyService project. In the Program.cs file of MyService, the connection can be consumed using the client library Aspire.Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos:

builder.AddAzureCosmosClient("cosmosdb");

Emulator usage

Aspire supports the usage of the Azure Cosmos DB emulator to use the emulator, add the following to your AppHost project:

// AppHost
var cosmosdb = builder.AddAzureCosmosDB("cosmos").RunAsEmulator();

When the AppHost starts up a local container running the Azure CosmosDB will also be started:

// Service code
builder.AddAzureCosmosClient("cosmos");

Connection Properties

When you reference Azure Cosmos DB resources using WithReference, the following connection properties are made available to the consuming project:

Cosmos DB account

The Cosmos DB account resource exposes the following connection properties:

Property Name Description
Uri The account endpoint URI for the Cosmos DB account, with the format https://mycosmosaccount.documents.azure.com:443/
AccountKey The account key for the Cosmos DB account (only available for emulator and access key authentication)
ConnectionString Emulator or access key authentication only. A full connection string (includes account key for emulator; access key secret when access key auth is enabled).

Cosmos DB database

The Cosmos DB database resource inherits all properties from its parent Cosmos DB account and adds:

Property Name Description
DatabaseName The name of the database

Cosmos DB container

The Cosmos DB container resource inherits all properties from its parent Cosmos DB database and adds:

Property Name Description
ContainerName The name of the container

Aspire exposes each property as an environment variable named [RESOURCE]_[PROPERTY]. For instance, the Uri property of a resource called db1 becomes DB1_URI.

Additional documentation

Feedback & contributing

https://github.com/microsoft/aspire

Changes from Previous Version

No structural changes between v13.2.0 and v13.2.1.

Adoption Assessment

A verified publisher signal is available. Assess fit from the package's supported frameworks, license and dependency graph rather than popularity alone.

Compatibility metadata lists 1 target framework; confirm the exact target used by your application.The published metadata declares 37 direct dependency entries across framework groups. Inspect the resolved dependency graph for your target framework.

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