ASP.NET Core / Vue.js SPA Template App

This app is a template application using ASP.NET Core for a REST/JSON API server and Vue.js for a web client.

Overview of Stack

• Server
  • ASP.NET Core
  • PostgresSQL
  • Entity Framework Core w/ EF Migrations
  • JSON Web Token (JWT) authorization with OpenIddict
  • Docker used for development PostgresSQL database and MailCatcher server
• Client
  • Vue.js
  • Webpack for asset bundling and HMR (Hot Module Replacement)
  • CSS Modules
  • Fetch API for REST requests
• Testing
  • xUnit for .NET Core
  • MailCatcher for development email delivery
• DevOps
  • Ansible playbook for provisioning (Nginx reverse proxy, SSL via Let's Encrypt, PostgresSQL backups to S3)
  • Ansible playbook for deployment

Setup

1. Install the following:
   • .NET Core 1.1
   • Node.js >= v7.8.0
   • Ansible >= 2.0
   • Docker
2. Run npm install && npm start
3. Open browser and navigate to http://localhost:5000.

Scripts

npm install

When first cloning the repo or adding new dependencies, run this command. This will:

• Install Node dependencies from package.json
• Install .NET Core dependencies from api/api.csproj and api.test/api.test.csproj (using dotnet restore)

npm start

To start the app for development, run this command. This will:

• Run docker-compose up to ensure the PostgreSQL and MailCatcher Docker images are up and running
• Run dotnet watch run which will build the app (if changed), watch for changes and start the web server on http://localhost:5000
• Run Webpack dev middleware with HMR via ASP.NET JavaScriptServices

npm run migrate

After making changes to Entity Framework models in api/Models/, run this command to generate and run a migration on the database. A timestamp will be used for the migration name.

npm test

This will run the xUnit tests in api.test/ and the Vue.js tests in client-web.test/.

npm run provision:prod

Before running this script, you need to create an ops/hosts file first. See the ops README for instructions.

This will run the ops/provision.yml Ansible playbook and provision hosts in ops/hosts inventory file. This prepares the hosts to recieve deployments by doing the following:

• Install Nginx
• Generate a SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt and configure Nginx to use it
• Install .Net Core
• Install Supervisor (will run/manage the ASP.NET app)
• Install PostgreSQL
• Setup a cron job to automatically backup the PostgresSQL database, compress it, and upload it to S3.
• Setup UFW (firewall) to lock everything down except inbound SSH and web traffic
• Create a deploy user, directory for deployments and configure Nginx to serve from this directory

npm run deploy:prod

Before running this script, you need to create a ops/hosts file first. See the ops README for instructions.

This script will:

• Build release Webpack bundles
• Package the .NET Core application in Release mode (dotnet publish)
• Run the ops/deploy.yml Ansible playbook to deploy this app to hosts in /ops/hosts inventory file. This does the following:
• Copies the build assets to the remote host(s)
• Updates the appsettings.json file with PostgresSQL credentials specified in ops/hosts file and the app URL (needed for JWT tokens)
• Restarts the app so that changes will be picked up

Development Email Delivery

This template includes a MailCatcher Docker image so that when email is sent during development (i.e. new user registration), it can be viewed in the MailCacher web interface at http://localhost:1080/.

Visual Studio Code config

This project has Visual Studio Code tasks and debugger launch config located in .vscode/.

Tasks

• Command+Shift+B - Runs the "build" task which builds the api/ project
• Command+Shift+T - Runs the "test" task which runs the xUnit tests in api.test/ and Mocha/Enzyme tests in client-web.test/.

Debug Launcher

With the following debugger launch configs, you can set breakpoints in api/ or the the Mocha tests in client-web.test/ and have full debugging support.

• Debug api/ (server) - Runs the vscode debugger (breakpoints) on the api/ .NET Core app
• Debug client-web.test/ (Mocha tests) - Runs the vscode debugger on the client-web.test/ Mocha tests

Credit

The following resources were helpful in setting up this template:

• Sample for implementing Authentication with a React Flux app and JWTs
• Angular 2, React, and Knockout apps on ASP.NET Core
• Setting up ASP.NET v5 (vNext) to use JWT tokens (using OpenIddict)
• Cross-platform Single Page Applications with ASP.NET Core 1.0, Angular 2 & TypeScript
• Stack Overflow - Token Based Authentication in ASP.NET Core
• SPA example of a token based authentication implementation using the Aurelia front end framework and ASP.NET core
• A Real-World React.js Setup for ASP.NET Core and MVC5
• My own perseverance because this took a lot of time to get right 😁