Creating APIs quickly

With .NET 8, APIs are integrated into the framework, making it easier to create, test, and document. In this section, we’ll learn a quick and easy way to create a minimal API using Visual Studio 2022 and walk through the code it generates. We’ll also learn why minimal APIs are the best approach to building REST-based services.

Using Visual Studio

One of the features of .NET 8 is the ability to create minimal REST APIs extremely fast. One way is to use the dotnet command-line tool and the other way is to use Visual Studio. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open Visual Studio 2022 and create an ASP.NET Core Web API project.
2. After selecting the directory for the project, click Next.
3. Under the project options, make the following changes:
   • Uncheck the Use Controllers option to use minimal APIs
   • Check Enable OpenAPI support to include support for API documentation using Swagger:

Figure 9.1 – Options for...