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ASP.NET Core MVC N-Tier Template

A clean, production-ready N-Tier starter architecture for enterprise ASP.NET Core applications.

Starter Template · 2025 · Creator & maintainer

Technology

  • C#
  • ASP.NET Core MVC
  • .NET
  • EF Core
  • Identity
  • SQL Server

Overview

Most .NET tutorials start with a single flat project that collapses under real-world complexity. This template is a clean, production-ready N-Tier solution with boundaries between Core business entities, Infrastructure data access, and the WebApp presentation layer.

It includes pre-wired Entity Framework Core migrations, ASP.NET Identity with secure cookie defaults, a generic repository with Unit of Work, and a README walking through adding new domains without breaking architecture boundaries.

The generic repository is deliberately not a silver bullet — it covers the CRUD case cleanly, but the README is explicit about when to drop down to a dedicated query class instead of forcing every read into a generic `GetAll()`/`Find()` shape, since that's the point where most repository-pattern templates quietly turn into a leaky abstraction.

The challenge

Problem: Most N-Tier starter templates either enforce the layering too rigidly (making every simple query a multi-file ceremony) or too loosely (letting Infrastructure concerns leak into Core the first time someone's in a hurry), and neither failure mode is obvious until a team has already built a few features on top of it.

Approach: Kept the boundary enforcement structural rather than aspirational: Core has zero project references to Infrastructure or WebApp, so a dependency in the wrong direction is a compile error, not a code-review catch. The generic repository handles the common case, with the README explicitly documenting the escape hatch (a dedicated query/service class) for anything that doesn't fit it.

Result: Teams adopting the template get real boundary enforcement from day one instead of a convention that erodes under deadline pressure — and it's public on GitHub as a reference other teams have built their own projects on top of.

Key features

  • Separation between Core, Infrastructure, and WebApp projects enforced at the project-reference level
  • Pre-configured Entity Framework Core with SQL Server migrations
  • ASP.NET Identity authentication with role-based authorization
  • Repository and Unit of Work patterns with async interfaces, plus a documented escape hatch for non-CRUD queries
  • Scoped dependency injection registration modules per layer
  • Baseline error handling, logging, and environment configuration

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