gRPC Browser

This project allows you to add a web-based gRPC Browser for debugging purposes to your .NET application.

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Features

1. Allows you to view and execute gRPC services in your .NET application
2. Supports both code-first gRPC and proto-first gRPC (with .proto files)
3. Does not use gRPC reflection or gRPC web
4. Support for all types of gRPC operation - Unary, Server Streaming, Client Streaming and Duplex
5. Support for Metadata
6. Support for displaying documentation

Future Roadmap

1. OAuth 2.0 support

Usage

1. Add the package GrpcBrowser from NuGet to your project. Your project SDK must be Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web (see Troubleshooting for further details).
2. In the configure method of your Startup class, add app.UseGrpcBrowser();
3. In the configure method of your Startup class, where you call endpoints.MapGrpcService(), add the following:
   1. For Code-First GRPC Services: .AddToGrpcBrowserWithService<ITheInterfaceOfMyCodeFirstService>()
   2. For Proto-First (where you have defined a .proto file): .AddToGrpcBrowserWithClient<GeneratedClientClassForMyProtoFirstGrpcService>()
4. In the UseEndpoints() setup, add endpoints.MapGrpcBrowser()

For example, the Configure method of a service with one proto-first and one code-first GRPC service could look like this:

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
    if (env.IsDevelopment())
    {
        app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
    }

    app.UseRouting();

    app.UseGrpcBrowser();

    app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
    {
        endpoints.MapGrpcService<ProtoFirstSampleService>().AddToGrpcBrowserWithClient<ProtoFirstGreeter.ProtoFirstGreeterClient>();
        endpoints.MapGrpcService<CodeFirstGreeterService>().AddToGrpcBrowserWithService<ICodeFirstGreeterService>();

        endpoints.MapGrpcBrowser();
    });
}

5. In the ConfigureServices method of your Startup class, add services.AddGrpcBrowser()

6. Start your service, and navigate to /grpc in your browser.

Click here for information on displaying documentation

Troubleshooting

Example projects for .NET Core 3.1, .NET 5.0 and .NET 6.0 can be found in the /src folder.

Error when navigating to /grpc

Make sure that your service SDK type is Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web. This is required because GrpcBrowser adds server-side Blazor to your project. In the .csproj file, set the Project Sdk like this: <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">

Implementation Detail

The service reflects over the types provided to AddToGrpcBrowserWithClient or AddToGrpcBrowserWithClient in order to determine the available operations, meaning that gRPC reflection is not required. Because we use server-side Blazor, the request execution is done from the server, meaning that gRPC web is not required.