EF Core Sidekick

Empower C# Learning by Building Real .NET Apps

With EF Core Sidekick—a free Visual Studio extension—you'll generate real, working .NET backend code in minutes. Perfect for beginners who want to understand how C# works in real-world scenarios.

Download the extension Explore the docs

Why Learn by Building?

Theory alone doesn't stick. Most learners give up when they can't see how things connect.

EF Core Sidekick helps you learn faster by giving you:

Real scaffolded .NET projects, not toy examples

Hands-on experience with C#, EF Core, and ASP.NET

Instant feedback as you explore and modify real code

It's the difference between watching tutorials and understanding how apps are built.

Download EF Core Sidekick

What is EF Core Sidekick?

EF Core Sidekick is a free Visual Studio extension that scaffolds complete .NET backend solutions using Entity Framework Core and ASP.NET Web APIs.

You get:

EF Core entities, DbContext, and DTOs

Service layer with clean dependency injection

API controllers built on ASP.NET Core

Templates that follow real-world best practices

Explore the Docs – Create a Web API

Learn the C# Essentials First

To understand and extend the code that EF Core Sidekick scaffolds for you, it helps to be familiar with the core building blocks of C#. These foundational skills will make it easier to follow the architecture and customize your app as you learn.

Syntax & Data Types

Start with variables, conditionals, loops, and built-in types like string, int, and bool. These are used everywhere in the scaffolded models, services, and APIs.

Learn C# Syntax and Types – Microsoft Docs

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

C# is built on classes, objects, inheritance, and encapsulation — and EF Core Sidekick's code reflects these principles across models, DTOs, and service layers.

OOP in C# – Microsoft Docs

LINQ & Async Programming

These are used extensively in data querying and API performance in Sidekick's scaffolded code. You'll see async/await methods in services and LINQ expressions used for filtering and shaping data.

Async Programming with async and await – Microsoft Docs

How You'll Learn by Doing

EF Core Sidekick scaffolds a real working .NET backend — so you're not just learning C#,
you're building a Web API that mirrors how real apps are made.

Step 1: Connect to a Database

Reverse engineer your schema in just a few clicks. EF Core Sidekick automatically generates EF Core entities that map to your tables.

Step 2: Scaffold the Project

EF Core Sidekick creates everything you need: EF Core entity classes and DbContext; DTOs for clean data contracts; Service classes with dependency injection; and ASP.NET Core API controllers.

Step 3: Run the API and Explore

Use tools like Postman to call your API endpoints. Step through the code in Visual Studio and watch how data flows from the controller to the database.

Step 4: Customize and Learn

Tweak services, modify DTOs, or experiment with async and LINQ. Learn by extending and debugging real C# code — not toy samples.

Follow This Step-by-Step Web API Tutorial Follow this Docs to understand better of the code it generates

It's the fastest way to go from "just learning C#" to building something useful — a real, data-connected Web API.

Why Use EF Core Sidekick While Learning?

Rather than starting from scratch, EF Core Sidekick gives you a ready-to-run codebase to learn from. It's like having a senior developer scaffold your app—then handing it over to you.

Skip boilerplate and jump into real logic

See how different layers (Entity → Service → API) fit together

Focus on learning C# and .NET, not fighting setup issues

Save hours and learn smarter