.NET Middleware

Middleware is software assembled into a pipeline to handle request and responses. Each component:

  • Chooses if he passes the request to the next component.
  • Can perform work before and after the next component.

Common use cases:

  • Logging
  • Authentication & Authorization
  • Request/Response processing
  • Caching
  • Error handling

.NET middleware

Implementation w. DI

We create our own custom middleware with an internal dependency, which is the class it’s going to process before/after our request.

// interface and its class, which do the processing
public interface IMiddlewareService
{
	Task ProcessRequest(string request);
}

// interface implementation
public class MiddlewareService : IMiddlewareService
{
	public async Task ProcessRequest(string request)
	{
		// do something with the request
		Console.WriteLine(request);
	}
}

Then we have our middleware class as such

public class CustomMiddleware(IMiddlewareService _service) : IMiddleware
{
	public async Task InvokeAsync(HttpContext context, RequestDelegate next)
	{
		// custom logic to be executed BEFORE next middleware
		await _service.ProcessRequest("middleware processing request");
		await next(context);
		// custom logic to be executed AFTER next middleware
	}
}

Declaration inside Startup.cs

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
	// ... whatever

	// register both: our custom middleware, and its internal dependency
	services.AddTransient<IMiddlewareService, MiddlewareService>();
	services.AddTransient<CustomMiddleware>();
	
	// ... whatever else
}

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
	// ... whatever

	// declaration to use middleware
	app.UseMiddleware<CustomMiddleware>();
	// if we use this, the middleware declaration has to be BEFORE or else it won't work
	app.UseEndpoints(endpoints => 
	{
		endpoints.MapControllers();
	})

	// ... whatever else
}

Reference(s)

https://medium.com/@dushyanthak/best-practices-for-writing-custom-middlewares-in-asp-net-core-97b58c50cf9c
https://learn.microsoft.com/es-es/aspnet/core/fundamentals/middleware/write?view=aspnetcore-8.0
https://sardarmudassaralikhan.medium.com/custom-middleware-in-asp-net-core-web-api-70c2ffbbc095