This Specialization provides a structured path to building modern Web APIs with ASP.NET Core 8, covering design, development, security, testing, deployment, and scalability. It begins with Web API design principles and ASP.NET Core fundamentals, helping learners understand application architecture, API workflows, and the framework features needed to create maintainable services.

Learners then explore data access and persistence with Entity Framework Core, including data modeling, entity relationships, and practical techniques for working with application data. The program also introduces identity, authentication, and authorization concepts, along with testing practices that improve software quality and reliability. Through unit and integration testing, learners gain confidence in API behavior and correctness.

The final course focuses on extending, operating, and scaling production-ready services. Topics include gRPC, GraphQL, SignalR, error handling, monitoring, observability, cloud-native development, and automated deployments using Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions. By completing all three courses, participants gain a comprehensive understanding of the ASP.NET Core Web API lifecycle, from design and implementation to testing, deployment, optimization, and operational readiness. This Specialization is based on the book Web API Development with ASP.NET Core 8, by Xiaodi Yan

Applied Learning Project

This specialization features hands-on projects that mirror real-world ASP.NET Core 8 Web API development. Learners build a RESTful API from scratch, implementing routing, middleware, validation, dependency injection, exception handling, and API documentation. They integrate Entity Framework Core to design data models, manage relationships, and perform CRUD operations. Security-focused projects introduce authentication, authorization, identity management, and role-based access control. Advanced projects explore gRPC, GraphQL, and SignalR for modern communication and real-time features. The specialization concludes with production-ready practices, including logging, monitoring, observability, performance optimization, and automated CI/CD deployments using Azure Pipelines and GitHub Actions, providing end-to-end experience in designing, building, testing, deploying, and operating scalable Web APIs.