Dotnet commands

Entity Framework (Database)

dotnet ef migrations add CreateInitial

Generates a new EF Core migration based on model changes. Replace CreateInitial with a descriptive name for the migration.

dotnet ef database update

Applies all pending migrations to the database. Creates the database if it doesn't exist.

Project scaffolding

dotnet new xunit

Creates a new xUnit test project in the current directory.

dotnet new classlib

Creates a new class library project (a .dll with no entry point, meant to be referenced by other projects).

dotnet new webapi

Creates a new ASP.NET Core Web API project with controllers and default configuration.

dotnet new gitignore

Generates a .gitignore file with common .NET exclusions (bin, obj, user files, etc.).

Solution management

dotnet new sln --name <solution_name>

Creates a new .sln file. The solution groups multiple projects together for building and IDE support.

dotnet sln <solution_name.sln> add <path_of_csproj>

Adds an existing project (.csproj) to the solution so it gets included in builds and shows up in the IDE.

Project references

dotnet add <path_of_csproj> reference <path_of_csproj>

Adds a project-to-project reference. The first path is the project that consumes the dependency, the second is the project being referenced. This lets one project use public types from another.