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If you’re eager to dive into the world of messaging systems but not quite ready for an in-depth tutorial, our Quick Start guide is the perfect starting point. This tutorial is designed to give you a solid introduction to NServiceBus, breaking down the process into five manageable lessons. Each lesson is crafted to fit into your busy schedule, taking around half an hour or less—ideal for a productive lunch break or a quick learning session.
Creating your first messaging endpoint
In this initial lesson, we’re going to embark on an exciting journey to create your very first messaging endpoint. This foundational step will take just 10 to 15 minutes, allowing you to test the waters of NServiceBus and see how it can enhance your applications. Our aim is to build something simple yet functional, giving you a hands-on experience.
This tutorial is tailored for NServiceBus version 9 and .NET 8, assuming you have the latest version of Visual Studio 2022 installed. First things first, let’s set up a basic solution and incorporate the necessary dependencies. This will ensure that our environment is primed for coding!
Setting up your environment
To get started, you’ll need to add the NServiceBus NuGet package to your project. Open PowerShell or any terminal you prefer and navigate to the ClientUI project directory. Then, execute the following command to include NServiceBus in your project:
Install-Package NServiceBus
This command will add both the NServiceBus and NServiceBus.Extension.Hosting packages to your ClientUI project. Now that the setup is complete, we can kick off the coding!
Understanding messaging endpoints
Now that we have the packages in place, it’s time to delve into what a messaging endpoint truly is. In essence, a messaging endpoint, or simply an endpoint, is a logical component responsible for sending and receiving messages. Think of it as a dedicated space where information flows between different systems.
In our case, the endpoint will reside within a console application. However, it could easily be adapted to a web application or any other .NET process. To keep things straightforward, this tutorial will not include the using statements typically required to import namespaces in your code. If you’re using Visual Studio, any unknown references will be highlighted with a “red squiggly” line. Hovering over these will allow you to quickly add the necessary using statements by clicking the light bulb icon or pressing Ctrl + .
Writing your first code
Let’s utilize the top-level statements feature to minimize unnecessary boilerplate code. Start off by adding the following code snippet to your Program.cs file:
// Your code here
As we proceed, we’ll break down what each line does, ensuring you grasp the functionality behind it. When working with multiple console applications in a single solution, naming each application distinctly is helpful for identification. We’ll name our console app ClientUI, and as we progress through future lessons, we’ll expand this solution to accommodate multiple applications.
Configuring your endpoint
Typically, the host is configured, built, and executed through the code in Program.cs. The CreateApplicationBuilder method comes into play here, crafting and configuring a builder object. One crucial aspect is the EndpointConfiguration class, where we set all the operational settings for our endpoint.
The parameter ‘ClientUI’ serves as the endpoint name, acting as its logical identifier. This name will help in establishing a naming convention for other components, like the input queue where your endpoint will listen for incoming messages. As we set up the endpoint configuration, we can choose how to serialize our messages. For this tutorial, we’ll opt for the SystemJsonSerializer, utilizing the .NET System.Text.Json serializer for efficiency.
Transport settings and initialization
Next, we’ll define the transport NServiceBus will use for message transmission. For beginners, we’ll use the Learning transport, which is included in the NServiceBus.Core library, making it a perfect starter option without adding extra dependencies. Capturing transport settings in a variable now will ease future lessons when we start defining routing rules for our messages.
To wrap up this section, after the configuration code, the following lines will initiate the endpoint and keep it active until you press Ctrl + C to terminate it:
// Initialization code here
When you run the endpoint for the first time, it will conduct several checks and setups to ensure everything is functioning correctly. In this lesson, we’ve successfully created a basic messaging endpoint. As we move forward, our next lesson will focus on defining a message and a message handler, sending the message, and observing its processing.