Part of: ASP.NET Core: a working guide for .NET developers, C#: a working guide for .NET developers, EF Core: a working guide for .NET developers
Editor's note
I pulled together a deliberately mixed issue today, which is how I like this newsletter to read. The MCP governance toolkit post stands out because it gets concrete about controlling tool use in agentic systems, and the Minimal APIs standup is a useful reality check on why teams still hesitate. There’s also a nice spread of foundational material here, from collections and EF to sealed, union types, and async edge cases.
Azure OpenAI agents, Minimal APIs, C# pitfalls
Jasen Fici
May 07, 2026
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Today's Articles
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Jasen's take on today's picks
Zero To First Agent (Azure OpenAI)
A practical on-ramp for building an Azure OpenAI agent in C#, especially useful if you want framework context instead of abstract AI talk.
More of a perspective piece than a tutorial, but it’s a worthwhile read on the limits of reducing messy work to software and automation.
Collections in .Net (C# Guide for Beginners)
A beginner-friendly refresher on the collection types you actually reach for, with enough real-world framing to stay useful.
Get Started With ENTITY FRAMEWORK In C#! (rhtBVESaBp)
Straightforward EF starter content for newcomers who want the basic mental model before diving into advanced mapping or performance topics.
This standup topic remains timely because Minimal APIs are mature now, yet many teams still prefer controllers for discoverability and structure.
Agentic AI Tools Are Orchestrators, Not Magic
A healthy correction to AI hype: orchestration, state, and integration do the heavy lifting long before the model adds the last mile.
Governing MCP tool calls in .NET with the Agent Governance Toolkit
This is one of the more important agent posts here because governance around MCP tool calls will matter the moment prototypes touch real systems.
The LocalStack Chronicles: A .NET Developer’s Survival Guide
If you use LocalStack from .NET, the battle scars around Docker networking and mismatched behavior are exactly the kind of lessons worth borrowing.
A useful language design discussion that helps frame when enums become too rigid and when richer union-style modeling pays off.
The Hidden Power of sealed in C#
Sealed is a small keyword with outsized design and performance implications, so I appreciate articles that treat it as more than trivia.
The Architecture of URL Paths: Why Kebab-Case is the Industry Gold Standard
Consistent URL design is not glamorous, but this is the kind of API discipline that quietly improves developer experience over time.
Make Cursor AI Debug C# Code In 9 Minutes! (aNGzL7uy5M)
AI-assisted debugging demos can be hit or miss, but this one is relevant if you want to gauge how Cursor fits into a C# workflow.
C# Traps & Edge Cases — Part 1: From Basics Through Async
These edge-case writeups are often where experienced developers still learn something, especially around async behavior and type semantics.