Get started with the Milvus integrations

Milvus is an open-source vector database built for AI and machine learning workloads. It efficiently stores, indexes, and searches large-scale vector embeddings, making it a popular choice for similarity search, recommendation engines, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines. The Aspire Milvus integration lets you model a Milvus server and its databases as first-class resources in your AppHost, then hand the connection information to any consuming app — regardless of language.

Why use Milvus with Aspire

Adding Milvus through Aspire — rather than wiring up containers and connection strings by hand — gives you:

• Zero-config local development. Aspire runs Milvus from the milvusdb/milvus container image with credentials generated automatically for you.
• Consistent connection info across languages. Once you reference the database from a consuming app, Aspire injects connection properties as environment variables in a predictable format that works from C#, TypeScript, Python, Go, or any other language.
• Built-in health checks. The hosting integration automatically registers a health check so the dashboard and your orchestrator can tell when the server is ready.
• Dashboard observability. The database resource shows up in the Aspire dashboard with logs, status, and telemetry alongside your other services.
• A first-class C# client integration. C# apps can use the Aspire.Milvus.Client package for dependency injection and health checks, wired up from the same resource name.
• Optional Attu admin UI. Spin up the Attu GUI alongside your Milvus server with a single method call in the AppHost.

How the pieces fit together

The Milvus integration has two sides: a hosting integration that you use in your AppHost to model the database resource, and a connection story for consuming apps that reference it.

architecture-beta

  group apphost(server)[AppHost]
  group consumer(server)[Consuming app]

  service hosting(server)[Hosting integration] in apphost
  service milvus(server)[Milvus server] in apphost
  service db(database)[milvusdb] in apphost

  service client(iconoir:server-connection)[Client integration] in consumer
  service app(server)[App] in consumer

  hosting:R --> L:milvus
  milvus:R --> L:db
  db:R --> L:client
  client:R --> L:app

The hosting integration lives in your AppHost project and models the Milvus server and databases as resources. The client integration lives in each consuming app and uses the connection information Aspire injects to talk to the database.

Getting there is a two-step process: model the Milvus resources in your AppHost, then connect to the database from each app that needs it.

1. Model Milvus in your AppHost

   Add the Milvus hosting integration to your AppHost, then declare a Milvus server, one or more databases, and reference them from the apps that need to talk to the database. The Milvus Hosting integration article walks through every capability — adding databases, Attu GUI, data volumes, API key parameters, and more — with side-by-side C# and TypeScript examples.

   Set up Milvus in the AppHost

2. Connect from your consuming app

   When you reference a Milvus database from a consuming app, Aspire injects its connection information as environment variables. See Connect to Milvus for the connection properties reference and per-language examples for C#, Go, Python, and TypeScript — including the full C# client integration.

   Connect to Milvus

See also

• Milvus documentation