In this module, you will learn to control and customize the flow of HTTP requests through your ASP.NET Core applications using middleware components and the request pipeline. You'll explore how middleware works as the foundation of ASP.NET Core's architecture, understanding how each component in the pipeline processes requests and responses in a specific order. Through hands-on practice, you'll configure built-in middleware for common tasks like authentication, static file serving, and error handling, then progress to creating custom middleware components that address specific application requirements. You'll implement request logging, response transformation, and throttling middleware while learning proper error handling and dependency injection patterns. You'll master middleware ordering principles, understand performance implications, and learn to debug pipeline issues effectively. By the end of this module, you'll be able to design and implement sophisticated request processing pipelines that handle cross-cutting concerns cleanly, maintain security and performance standards, and provide the foundation for scalable, maintainable web applications.

In this module, you will learn to build robust ASP.NET Core applications through comprehensive error handling and effective debugging strategies. You'll implement global exception handling mechanisms that capture and process errors consistently across your entire application, preventing unhandled exceptions from reaching end users. Through hands-on practice, you'll configure structured logging systems that capture meaningful application events and errors for analysis and monitoring. You'll master debugging techniques using Visual Studio Code's integrated tools, learning to set breakpoints, inspect variables, and trace execution flow to identify and resolve complex issues efficiently. You'll also create user-friendly error responses for API consumers that provide helpful information without exposing sensitive system details. By the end of this module, you'll be able to build applications that gracefully handle unexpected situations, provide clear diagnostic information for troubleshooting, and maintain professional user experiences even when errors occur.

In this module, you will learn to build data-driven ASP.NET Core applications using Entity Framework Core as your object-relational mapping (ORM) solution. You'll explore how Entity Framework Core simplifies database operations while maintaining type safety and performance, understanding the architecture and components that make it the preferred data access technology for .NET applications. Through hands-on practice, you'll design and create comprehensive data models with proper entity relationships, implement the repository pattern for clean architecture, and build complete CRUD operations within a well-structured service layer. You'll master database migrations for schema management, implement robust data validation strategies, and create comprehensive unit tests that ensure your data access layer performs reliably. You'll learn to configure complex relationships including one-to-many, many-to-many, and owned entity types while optimizing for both query performance and data integrity. By the end of this module, you'll be able to architect and implement enterprise-grade data access solutions that support complex business requirements while maintaining clean separation of concerns and comprehensive test coverage.

In this hands-on project, you will build a lightweight task management API using ASP.NET Core. The project focuses on foundational concepts, including dependency injection, minimal APIs, basic data modeling, and simple middleware.