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.NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component

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In this article, you learn how to use the .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component. The Aspire.StackExchange.Redis library is used to register an IConnectionMultiplexer in the DI container for connecting to a Redis server. It enables corresponding health checks, logging and telemetry.

Get started

To get started with the .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component, install the Aspire.StackExchange.Redis NuGet package.

dotnet add package Aspire.StackExchange.Redis

For more information, see dotnet add package or Manage package dependencies in .NET applications.

Example usage

In the Program.cs file of your component-consuming project, call the AddRedisClient extension to register a IConnectionMultiplexer for use via the dependency injection container.

builder.AddRedisClient("cache");

You can then retrieve the IConnectionMultiplexer instance using dependency injection. For example, to retrieve the connection multiplexer from a service:

public class ExampleService(IConnectionMultiplexer connectionMultiplexer)
{
    // Use connection multiplexer...
}

App host usage

To model the Redis resource in the app host, install the Aspire.Hosting.Redis NuGet package.

dotnet add package Aspire.Hosting.Redis

In your app host project, register the .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis as a resource using the AddRedis method and consume the service using the following methods:

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var redis = builder.AddRedis("redis");

builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>()
       .WithReference(redis)

The WithReference method configures a connection in the ExampleProject project named redis. In the Program.cs file of ExampleProject, the Redis connection can be consumed using:

builder.AddRedis("cache");

Configuration

The .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component provides multiple options to configure the Redis connection based on the requirements and conventions of your project.

Use a connection string

When using a connection string from the ConnectionStrings configuration section, you can provide the name of the connection string when calling builder.AddRedis:

builder.AddRedis("RedisConnection");

And then the connection string will be retrieved from the ConnectionStrings configuration section:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "RedisConnection": "localhost:6379"
  }
}

For more information on how to format this connection string, see the Stack Exchange Redis configuration docs.

Use configuration providers

The .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component supports Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration. It loads the StackExchangeRedisSettings from configuration by using the Aspire:StackExchange:Redis key. Example appsettings.json that configures some of the options:

{
  "Aspire": {
    "StackExchange": {
      "Redis": {
        "ConfigurationOptions": {
          "ConnectTimeout": 3000,
          "ConnectRetry": 2
        },
        "DisableHealthChecks": true,
        "DisableTracing": false
      }
    }
  }
}

Use inline delegates

You can also pass the Action<StackExchangeRedisSettings> delegate to set up some or all the options inline, for example to configure DisableTracing:

builder.AddRedis(
    "cache",
    settings => settings.DisableTracing = true);

Health checks

By default, .NET Aspire components enable health checks for all services. For more information, see .NET Aspire components overview.

The .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component handles the following:

  • Adds the StackExchange.Redis health check, tries to open the connection and throws when it fails.
  • Integrates with the /health HTTP endpoint, which specifies all registered health checks must pass for app to be considered ready to accept traffic

Observability and telemetry

.NET Aspire components automatically set up Logging, Tracing, and Metrics configurations, which are sometimes known as the pillars of observability. For more information about component observability and telemetry, see .NET Aspire components overview. Depending on the backing service, some components may only support some of these features. For example, some components support logging and tracing, but not metrics. Telemetry features can also be disabled using the techniques presented in the Configuration section.

Logging

The .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component uses the following log categories:

  • Aspire.StackExchange.Redis

Tracing

The .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component will emit the following tracing activities using OpenTelemetry:

  • "OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.StackExchangeRedis"

Metrics

The .NET Aspire Stack Exchange Redis component currently doesn't support metrics by default due to limitations with the StackExchange.Redis library.

See also