Get Started with ASP.NET Core MVC

Overview

This tutorial walks you through building a simple ASP.NET Core MVC web app. You’ll learn how to create a project, add a controller, render a view, and run the app locally.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following installed:

• Visual Studio 2022 (or later) with the ASP.NET and web development workload
• .NET 8 SDK
• Git (optional, for source control)

Create a New MVC Project

Open Visual Studio and select Create a new project. Choose ASP.NET Core Web App (Model-View-Controller), then click Next.

dotnet new mvc -n MvcMovie

When prompted, select .NET 8.0 (Long-term support) and ensure Enable Docker is unchecked.

Run the Application

Press F5 to launch the app with debugging, or Ctrl+F5 to run without debugging.

cd MvcMovie
dotnet run

Navigate to https://localhost:5001 in your browser. You should see the default home page.

Add a Controller & View

Right‑click the Controllers folder → Add → Controller.... Choose MVC Controller - Empty and name it WelcomeController.

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;

namespace MvcMovie.Controllers
{
    public class WelcomeController : Controller
    {
        public IActionResult Index()
        {
            ViewData["Message"] = "Welcome to ASP.NET Core MVC!";
            return View();
        }
    }
}

Create a view named Index.cshtml under Views/Welcome:

@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Welcome";
}
<h1>@ViewData["Title"]</h1>
<p>@ViewData["Message"]</p>

Navigate to /welcome to see the new page.

Next Steps

• Explore Model binding and create a data model.
• Implement a database using Entity Framework Core.
• Add authentication with ASP.NET Core Identity.
• Deploy to Azure using Azure App Service.