Azure Application Insights

This article is the reference for the Aspire Azure Application Insights integration. It covers the AppHost APIs — with examples for both AppHost.cs and apphost.ts — that you use to model an Azure Application Insights resource in your AppHost project, as well as how to configure the Application Insights SDK in consuming apps.

Azure Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for developers and DevOps professionals. The Aspire Azure Application Insights integration enables you to provision Application Insights resources for collecting telemetry data from your applications.

Hosting integration

The Aspire Azure Application Insights hosting integration models the Application Insights component as the following type:

• AzureApplicationInsightsResource: Represents an Azure Application Insights resource.

Installation

To start building an Aspire app that uses Azure Application Insights, install the 📦 Aspire.Hosting.Azure.ApplicationInsights NuGet package:

C#

Terminal

aspire add azure-application-insights

Learn more about aspire add in the command reference.

Or, choose a manual installation approach:

C# — AppHost.cs

#:package Aspire.Hosting.Azure.ApplicationInsights@*

XML — AppHost.csproj

<PackageReference Include="Aspire.Hosting.Azure.ApplicationInsights" Version="*" />

TypeScript

Terminal

aspire add azure-application-insights

Learn more about aspire add in the command reference.

This updates your aspire.config.json with the Azure Application Insights hosting integration package:

aspire.config.json

{
  "packages": {
    "Aspire.Hosting.Azure.ApplicationInsights": "*"
  }
}

Add Azure Application Insights resource

Once you’ve installed the hosting integration in your AppHost project, call AddAzureApplicationInsights (or addAzureApplicationInsights) to add and return an Azure Application Insights resource builder:

C#

C# — AppHost.cs

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var appInsights = builder.AddAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights");

builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>()
    .WithReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
builder.Build().Run();

TypeScript

TypeScript — apphost.ts

import { createBuilder } from './.modules/aspire.js';

const builder = await createBuilder();

const appInsights = await builder.addAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights");

await builder.addNodeApp("api", "./api", "index.js")
    .withReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
await builder.build().run();

1. An Azure Application Insights resource named app-insights is added to the application model.

2. A Log Analytics workspace is automatically created to store the telemetry data.

3. The WithReference (or withReference) call configures a connection in the consuming project, making the Application Insights connection string available as the APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING environment variable.

Caution

When you call AddAzureApplicationInsights (or addAzureApplicationInsights), it implicitly calls AddAzureProvisioning — which adds support for generating Azure resources dynamically during app startup. The app must configure the appropriate subscription and location. For more information, see Local provisioning: Configuration.

Use with existing Log Analytics workspace

If you have an existing Log Analytics workspace that you want to use, you can link Application Insights to it:

C#

C# — AppHost.cs

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var logAnalytics = builder.AddAzureLogAnalyticsWorkspace("log-analytics");
var appInsights = builder.AddAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights", logAnalytics);

builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>()
    .WithReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
builder.Build().Run();

TypeScript

TypeScript — apphost.ts

import { createBuilder } from './.modules/aspire.js';

const builder = await createBuilder();

const logAnalytics = await builder.addAzureLogAnalyticsWorkspace("log-analytics");
const appInsights = await builder.addAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights", logAnalytics);

await builder.addNodeApp("api", "./api", "index.js")
    .withReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
await builder.build().run();

The preceding code:

• Adds an Azure Log Analytics workspace resource named log-analytics.
• Adds an Azure Application Insights resource named app-insights that uses the specified Log Analytics workspace.
• References the Application Insights resource in the consuming project.

Configure Log Analytics workspace after creation

You can also configure the Log Analytics workspace using the fluent API:

C#

C# — AppHost.cs

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var logAnalytics = builder.AddAzureLogAnalyticsWorkspace("log-analytics");
var appInsights = builder.AddAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights")
    .WithLogAnalyticsWorkspace(logAnalytics);

builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>()
    .WithReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
builder.Build().Run();

TypeScript

TypeScript — apphost.ts

import { createBuilder } from './.modules/aspire.js';

const builder = await createBuilder();

const logAnalytics = await builder.addAzureLogAnalyticsWorkspace("log-analytics");
const appInsights = await builder.addAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights")
    .withLogAnalyticsWorkspace(logAnalytics);

await builder.addNodeApp("api", "./api", "index.js")
    .withReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
await builder.build().run();

Connection properties

The Azure Application Insights resource exposes the following connection property:

Property name	Description
appInsightsConnectionString	The connection string for Application Insights.

This connection string is automatically made available to referencing projects as an environment variable named APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING (or based on the resource name).

Provisioning-generated Bicep

If you’re new to Bicep, it’s a domain-specific language for defining Azure resources. With Aspire, you don’t need to write Bicep by hand — the provisioning APIs generate it for you. When you publish your app, the generated Bicep is output alongside the manifest file. When you add an Azure Application Insights resource, the following Bicep is generated:

Bicep — app-insights.bicep

@description('The location for the resource(s) to be deployed.')
param location string = resourceGroup().location

param applicationType string = 'web'

param kind string = 'web'

param logAnalyticsWorkspaceId string

resource app_insights 'Microsoft.Insights/components@2020-02-02' = {
  name: take('app-insights-${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}', 260)
  kind: kind
  location: location
  properties: {
    Application_Type: applicationType
    WorkspaceResourceId: logAnalyticsWorkspaceId
  }
  tags: {
    'aspire-resource-name': 'app-insights'
  }
}

output appInsightsConnectionString string = app_insights.properties.ConnectionString

The preceding Bicep provisions an Azure Application Insights component linked to a Log Analytics workspace for storing telemetry data.

The generated Bicep is a starting point that reflects the provisioning infrastructure configured in your AppHost. Customizations made directly to the Bicep files are overwritten on the next publish — make changes through the C# or TypeScript provisioning APIs instead.

Customize provisioning infrastructure

All Aspire Azure resources are subclasses of the AzureProvisioningResource type. This type enables the customization of the generated Bicep by providing a fluent API to configure the Azure resources using the ConfigureInfrastructure API:

C#

C# — AppHost.cs

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var appInsights = builder.AddAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights")
    .ConfigureInfrastructure(infra =>
    {
        var insights = infra.GetProvisionableResources()
            .OfType<ApplicationInsightsComponent>()
            .Single();

        insights.RetentionInDays = 90;
        insights.IngestionMode = ComponentIngestionMode.LogAnalytics;
        insights.Tags.Add("environment", "production");
    });

builder.AddProject<Projects.ExampleProject>()
    .WithReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
builder.Build().Run();

TypeScript

TypeScript — apphost.ts

import { createBuilder } from './.modules/aspire.js';

const builder = await createBuilder();

const appInsights = await builder.addAzureApplicationInsights("app-insights")
    .configureInfrastructure(async (infra) => {
        await infra.addParameter("retentionInDays", "90");
        await infra.addParameter("environment", "production");
    });

await builder.addNodeApp("api", "./api", "index.js")
    .withReference(appInsights);

// After adding all resources, run the app...
await builder.build().run();

The preceding C# code:

• Chains a call to the ConfigureInfrastructure API:
  • The infra parameter is an instance of the AzureResourceInfrastructure type.
  • The provisionable resources are retrieved by calling GetProvisionableResources.
  • The ApplicationInsightsComponent is configured with 90-day retention and a custom tag.

For more information, see Customize Azure resources. For the full list of configurable properties, see the Azure.Provisioning.ApplicationInsights API documentation.

Client integration

Note

The Azure Application Insights hosting integration works with the standard Application Insights SDK and OpenTelemetry exporters. No separate Aspire client integration package is required.

Configure Application Insights in your application

To use Application Insights in your application, configure the OpenTelemetry exporter in your service defaults:

C# — Extensions.cs

public static IHostApplicationBuilder AddServiceDefaults(
    this IHostApplicationBuilder builder)
{
    builder.ConfigureOpenTelemetry();

    // ... other configuration

    return builder;
}

public static IHostApplicationBuilder ConfigureOpenTelemetry(
    this IHostApplicationBuilder builder)
{
    builder.Logging.AddOpenTelemetry(logging =>
    {
        logging.IncludeFormattedMessage = true;
        logging.IncludeScopes = true;
    });

    builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
        .WithMetrics(metrics =>
        {
            metrics.AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
                   .AddHttpClientInstrumentation()
                   .AddRuntimeInstrumentation();
        })
        .WithTracing(tracing =>
        {
            tracing.AddSource(builder.Environment.ApplicationName)
                   .AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
                   .AddHttpClientInstrumentation();
        });

    builder.AddOpenTelemetryExporters();

    return builder;
}

private static IHostApplicationBuilder AddOpenTelemetryExporters(
    this IHostApplicationBuilder builder)
{
    var useOtlpExporter = !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(
        builder.Configuration["OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT"]);

    if (useOtlpExporter)
    {
        builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
            .UseOtlpExporter();
    }

    // Application Insights automatically picks up the connection string
    // from the APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING environment variable.

    return builder;
}

Alternatively, you can use the Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry exporter directly:

C# — Program.cs

builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
    .UseAzureMonitor(options =>
    {
        options.ConnectionString = builder.Configuration
            .GetConnectionString("app-insights");
    });

See also

• Application Insights overview
• Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry for .NET
• Azure Log Analytics integration
• Azure integration overview