Microsoft Docs

Entity Framework Core

Entity Framework Core (EF Core) is a modern object‑relational mapper (ORM) for .NET. It enables .NET developers to work with a database using .NET objects, eliminating most of the data‑access code they usually need to write.

Quick start

Install the EF Core package and create a simple model.

dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer

// Model
public class Blog
{
    public int BlogId { get; set; }
    public string? Url { get; set; }
    public List<Post> Posts { get; set; } = new();
}

// DbContext
public class BloggingContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Blog> Blogs { get; set; } = null!;

    protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder options)
        => options.UseSqlServer(@"Server=(localdb)\mssqllocaldb;Database=Blogging;");
}

Key concepts

  • DbContext – a session with the database.
  • Models – POCO classes that represent tables.
  • Migrations – version‑control for schema changes.
  • LINQ queries – strongly typed queries against the DbSet.

Resources