Use AI coding agents

Aspire provides a first-class setup experience for AI coding agents. Run aspire agent init in your project and your AI assistant — whether it’s GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or another MCP-compatible tool — can immediately understand, build, debug, and monitor your distributed applications.

Why Aspire for coding agents

Aspire gives coding agents the same visibility into your running application that a developer has. The resource data, structured logs, and distributed traces you see in the Aspire Dashboard are exposed to agents through the Aspire MCP server and the Aspire CLI. Whether a person is debugging in the dashboard or an agent is diagnosing through MCP, they see the same picture.

The Aspire CLI is built for agent-driven workflows — commands support non-interactive execution to avoid blocking on prompts, and many commands support --format Json for structured plain text output. Key commands include aspire start (background execution), aspire start --isolated (parallel worktrees), aspire wait (block until healthy), aspire describe, aspire logs, and aspire docs search.

The Aspire skill file (installed by aspire agent init) teaches agents all of these patterns automatically.

Get started

When you create a new Aspire project with aspire new or aspire init, you’re prompted to configure AI agent environments. You can also run aspire agent init at any time to set up or update the configuration.

1. Open a terminal in your Aspire project directory (the folder containing your AppHost).

2. Run the following command:

   Aspire CLI

   aspire agent init

3. Select the skill locations where you want files installed. The Standard location is pre-selected by default:

   Location	Directory	Notes
   Standard	.agents/skills/	Supported by VS Code, GitHub Copilot, and OpenCode
   Claude Code	.claude/skills/	Claude Code specific
   GitHub Skills	.github/skills/	VS Code / GitHub Copilot specific
   OpenCode	.opencode/skill/	OpenCode specific

4. Select the skills and tools to install into those locations. All options are pre-selected by default:

   • Aspire skill — teaches your AI agent how to use Aspire CLI commands
   • Playwright CLI — enables browser automation for testing web resources
   • dotnet-inspect skill — teaches your AI agent to query .NET API surfaces

What gets configured

The aspire agent init command detects your AI development environment and creates the appropriate configuration files:

Aspire skill file

The skill file teaches your AI coding agent how to work with Aspire. It includes a CLI command reference, key workflows (starting apps, debugging issues, adding integrations), and important rules to follow. The file is installed into each selected skill location:

• Directory.agents/skills/aspire/

  • SKILL.md Standard (VS Code, GitHub Copilot, OpenCode)
• Directory.github/skills/aspire/

  • SKILL.md GitHub Copilot (legacy location)
• Directory.claude/skills/aspire/

  • SKILL.md Claude Code
• Directory.opencode/skill/aspire/

  • SKILL.md OpenCode

The skill file guides your agent on how to:

• Start and manage your Aspire application (aspire start, aspire stop, aspire describe)
• Debug issues using structured logs and distributed traces
• Add integrations with aspire add and search documentation with aspire docs
• Use resource MCP tools for database queries and other resource-specific operations

dotnet-inspect skill

The dotnet-inspect skill teaches your AI agent to query .NET API surfaces using the dotnet-inspect tool. It’s installed alongside the Aspire skill in each selected location:

• Directory.agents/skills/dotnet-inspect/

  • SKILL.md
• Directory.github/skills/dotnet-inspect/

  • SKILL.md
• Directory.claude/skills/dotnet-inspect/

  • SKILL.md
• Directory.opencode/skill/dotnet-inspect/

  • SKILL.md

The skill enables your agent to inspect NuGet package API surfaces, compare API changes between package versions, and explore .NET types and members.

Skill conflict

The dotnet-inspect skill should not be installed alongside the Aspire skill. The Aspire skill already includes support for aspire docs api subcommands, providing a powerful way to query Aspire APIs across both C# and TypeScript.

Aspire MCP server

The MCP server gives your AI agent direct runtime access to your running Aspire application — resource status, logs, traces, and commands. See Aspire MCP server for configuration details, available tools, and the security model.

Migrate from AGENTS.md

If your project has an AGENTS.md file from a previous version of Aspire, you can migrate to the new skill file format. The skill file provides better structure and is recognized natively by AI coding agents.

1. Run aspire agent init and select Install Aspire skill file.

2. The skill files are created at .github/skills/aspire/SKILL.md and .claude/skills/aspire/SKILL.md.

3. Review and delete the old AGENTS.md file — the skill file replaces it.

Tip

The skill file is more structured than AGENTS.md and includes a complete CLI command reference table, workflow patterns, and rules that the agent follows automatically. You can customize it for your project’s specific needs.

Your first prompts

Once configured, start your preferred AI coding environment. Try asking your agent:

“Start the Aspire app and show me the resource status.”

“Analyze HTTP request performance for my API.”

“Add a Redis cache to my AppHost.”

VS Code

Pause video

Claude Code

Copilot CLI

OpenCode

Supported AI assistants

The aspire agent init command supports the following AI assistants:

• VS Code with GitHub Copilot
• Copilot CLI
• Claude Code
• OpenCode

Note

The Aspire MCP server uses the STDIO transport protocol and may work with other agentic coding environments that support this MCP communication protocol.

See also

• Aspire MCP server — tools, security, and troubleshooting for the MCP server
• aspire agent command
• aspire agent init command
• aspire agent mcp command
• Dashboard security considerations
• Dashboard and AI coding agents