Version 9.4 of Microsoft’s .NET Aspire tools for building cloud-ready, distributed apps has arrived. The update features CLI core commands for starting an application, hosting integrations, running a full application stack, and changing CLI settings. This release also features AI hosting integrations.

Announced July 29, version 9.4 is described as .NET Aspire’s biggest release ever, although the documentation indicates it is a minor version release. Upgrade instructions can be found at learn.microsoft.com.

.NET Aspire 9.4’s native, AOT-compiled CLI is now generally available and geared to be a fast, scriptable, and consistent way to scaffold, run, and configure apps. Core commands include:

• aspire new: For choosing from a set of templates to kickstart an app.
• aspire add: For adding Aspire hosting integrations from a repository.
• aspire run: For running an app stack from any terminal, editor, or subdirectory.
• aspire config: To view and set CLI settings and feature flags.

This release also includes an updated version of aspire publish, still in preview, and two beta commands: exec, for executing CLI tools like database migrations, and deploy, for deploying to development, testing, or production environments. The CLI can be downloaded from a Bash or PowerShell installation script:

• Bash: curl -sSL https://aspire.dev/install.sh | bash
• PowerShell: iex "& { $(irm https://aspire.dev/install.ps1) }"

Aspire 9.4 also has two new AI-focused hosting integrations: GitHub Models (Preview) and Azure AI Foundry (Preview). Developers can use these integrations to define AI models in an application host, then run them locally or deploy models to develop against. Both integrations work seamlessly with the Azure AI Inference (Preview) client integration. For custom dashboard interactivity, .NET Aspire 9.4 features a “user-friendly overhaul” to eventing APIs and an extensibility point called the interaction service. With this service, developers can create a custom UX to get user input during development while the application is running. Five input types are supported, including text, masked text input (SecretText), numeric input, choice, and Boolean. The service also collects any missing parameter values defined in an apphost.

Aspire provides what Microsoft describes as a unified toolchain for launching and debugging an application locally with one command, which then can be deployed anywhere using the same composition, be it Kubernetes, the cloud, or a user’s personal servers. The Microsoft announcement included an Aspire roadmap for the next six months. Among the highlights are improved networking and access and AI-specific enhancements such as improved LLM interactions and AI workflows. The six-month roadmap includes native support for building agent-based apps with Azure Foundry.