MongoDB support for JsonApiDotNetCore
April 27, 2025 ยท View on GitHub
Plug-n-play implementation of IResourceRepository<TResource, TId>, allowing you to use MongoDB with your JsonApiDotNetCore API projects.
Getting started
The following steps describe how to create a JSON:API project with MongoDB.
-
Install the JsonApiDotNetCore.MongoDb package:
dotnet add package JsonApiDotNetCore.MongoDb -
Declare your entities, annotated with JsonApiDotNetCore attributes:
#nullable enable [Resource] public class Person : HexStringMongoIdentifiable { [Attr] public string? FirstName { get; set; } [Attr] public string LastName { get; set; } = null!; } -
Configure MongoDB and JsonApiDotNetCore in
Program.cs, seeding the database with sample data:var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args); builder.Services.AddSingleton(_ => new MongoClient("mongodb://localhost:27017").GetDatabase("ExampleDbName")); builder.Services.AddJsonApi(options => { options.UseRelativeLinks = true; options.IncludeTotalResourceCount = true; }, resources: resourceGraphBuilder => resourceGraphBuilder.Add<Person, string?>()); builder.Services.AddJsonApiMongoDb(); builder.Services.AddResourceRepository<MongoRepository<Person, string?>>(); var app = builder.Build(); app.UseRouting(); app.UseJsonApi(); app.MapControllers(); var database = app.Services.GetRequiredService<IMongoDatabase>(); await CreateSampleDataAsync(database); app.Run(); static async Task CreateSampleDataAsync(IMongoDatabase database) { await database.DropCollectionAsync(nameof(Person)); await database.GetCollection<Person>(nameof(Person)).InsertManyAsync(new[] { new Person { FirstName = "John", LastName = "Doe", }, new Person { FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Doe", }, new Person { FirstName = "John", LastName = "Smith", } }); } -
Start your API
dotnet run -
Send a GET request to retrieve data:
GET http://localhost:5000/people?filter=equals(lastName,'Doe')&fields[people]=firstName HTTP/1.1Expand to view the JSON response
{ "links": { "self": "/people?filter=equals(lastName,%27Doe%27)&fields[people]=firstName", "first": "/people?filter=equals(lastName,%27Doe%27)&fields%5Bpeople%5D=firstName", "last": "/people?filter=equals(lastName,%27Doe%27)&fields%5Bpeople%5D=firstName" }, "data": [ { "type": "people", "id": "680cae2e1759666c5c1e988c", "attributes": { "firstName": "John" }, "links": { "self": "/people/680cae2e1759666c5c1e988c" } }, { "type": "people", "id": "680cae2e1759666c5c1e988d", "attributes": { "firstName": "Jane" }, "links": { "self": "/people/680cae2e1759666c5c1e988d" } } ], "meta": { "total": 2 } }
Tip
If your API project uses MongoDB only (so not in combination with EF Core), then instead of registering all MongoDB resources and repositories individually, you can use:
builder.Services.AddJsonApi(facade => facade.AddCurrentAssembly());
builder.Services.AddJsonApiMongoDb();
builder.Services.AddScoped(typeof(IResourceReadRepository<,>), typeof(MongoRepository<,>));
builder.Services.AddScoped(typeof(IResourceWriteRepository<,>), typeof(MongoRepository<,>));
builder.Services.AddScoped(typeof(IResourceRepository<,>), typeof(MongoRepository<,>));
Using client-generated IDs
Resources that inherit from HexStringMongoIdentifiable use auto-generated (high-performance) 12-byte hexadecimal
Object IDs.
You can assign an ID explicitly, but it must match the 12-byte hexadecimal pattern.
To use free-format string IDs, make your resources inherit from FreeStringMongoIdentifiable instead.
When creating a resource without assigning an ID, a 12-byte hexadecimal ID will be auto-generated.
Set options.ClientIdGeneration to Allowed or Required from Program.cs to enable API clients to assign IDs. This can be combined
with both base classes, but FreeStringMongoIdentifiable probably makes the most sense.
Limitations
- JSON:API relationships are currently not supported. You can use complex object graphs though, which are stored in a single document.
Trying out the latest build
After each commit to the master branch, a new pre-release NuGet package is automatically published to feedz.io. To try it out, follow the steps below:
-
Create a
nuget.configfile in the same directory as your .sln file, with the following contents:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <configuration> <packageSources> <add key="json-api-dotnet" value="https://f.feedz.io/json-api-dotnet/jsonapidotnetcore/nuget/index.json" /> <add key="NuGet" value="https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json" /> </packageSources> </configuration> -
In your IDE, browse the list of packages from the
json-api-dotnetfeed. Make sure pre-release packages are included in the list.
Contributing
Have a question, found a bug or want to submit code changes? See our contributing guidelines.
Build from source
To build the code from this repository locally, run:
dotnet build
You can run tests without MongoDB on your machine. The following command runs all tests:
dotnet test
A running instance of MongoDB is required to run the examples. If you have docker installed, you can launch MongoDB in a container with the following command:
pwsh run-docker-mongodb.ps1
And then to run the API:
dotnet run --project src/Examples/GettingStarted
Alternatively, to build, run all tests, generate code coverage and NuGet packages:
pwsh Build.ps1