Resolving instances with ASP.NET Core DI from within ConfigureServices

Question

How do I manually resolve a type using the ASP.NET Core MVC built-in dependency injection framework?

Setting up the container is easy enough:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    // ...

    services.AddTransient<ISomeService, SomeConcreteService>();
}

But how can I resolve ISomeService without performing injection? For example, I want to do this:

ISomeService service = services.Resolve<ISomeService>();

There are no such methods in IServiceCollection.

Solution 1

The IServiceCollection interface is used for building a dependency injection container. After it's fully built, it gets composed to an IServiceProvider instance which you can use to resolve services. You can inject an IServiceProvider into any class. The IApplicationBuilder and HttpContext classes can provide the service provider as well, via their ApplicationServices or RequestServices properties respectively.

IServiceProvider defines a GetService(Type type) method to resolve a service:

var service = (IFooService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IFooService));

There are also several convenience extension methods available, such as serviceProvider.GetService<IFooService>() (add a using for Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection).

Resolving services inside the startup class

Injecting dependencies

The runtime's hosting service provider can inject certain services into the constructor of the Startup class, such as IConfiguration, IWebHostEnvironment (IHostingEnvironment in pre-3.0 versions), ILoggerFactory and IServiceProvider. Note that the latter is an instance built by the hosting layer and contains only the essential services for starting up an application.

The ConfigureServices() method does not allow injecting services, it only accepts an IServiceCollection argument. This makes sense because ConfigureServices() is where you register the services required by your application. However you can use services injected in the startup's constructor here, for example:

public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
    Configuration = configuration;
}

public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    // Use Configuration here
}

Any services registered in ConfigureServices() can then be injected into the Configure() method; you can add an arbitrary number of services after the IApplicationBuilder parameter:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddScoped<IFooService>();
}

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IFooService fooService)
{
    fooService.Bar();
}

Manually resolving dependencies

If you need to manually resolve services, you should preferably use the ApplicationServices provided by IApplicationBuilder in the Configure() method:

public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
{
    var serviceProvider = app.ApplicationServices;
    var hostingEnv = serviceProvider.GetService<IHostingEnvironment>();
}

It is possible to pass and directly use an IServiceProvider in the constructor of your Startup class, but as above this will contain a limited subset of services, and thus has limited utility:

public Startup(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
    var hostingEnv = serviceProvider.GetService<IWebHostEnvironment>();
}

If you must resolve services in the ConfigureServices() method, a different approach is required. You can build an intermediate IServiceProvider from the IServiceCollection instance which contains the services which have been registered up to that point:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddSingleton<IFooService, FooService>();

    // Build the intermediate service provider
    var sp = services.BuildServiceProvider();

    // This will succeed.
    var fooService = sp.GetService<IFooService>();
    // This will fail (return null), as IBarService hasn't been registered yet.
    var barService = sp.GetService<IBarService>();
}

Please note: Generally you should avoid resolving services inside the ConfigureServices() method, as this is actually the place where you're configuring the application services. Sometimes you just need access to an IOptions<MyOptions> instance. You can accomplish this by binding the values from the IConfiguration instance to an instance of MyOptions (which is essentially what the options framework does):

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    var myOptions = new MyOptions();
    Configuration.GetSection("SomeSection").Bind(myOptions);
}

Or use an overload for AddSingleton/AddScoped/AddTransient:

// Works for AddScoped and AddTransient as well
services.AddSingleton<IBarService>(sp =>
{
    var fooService = sp.GetRequiredService<IFooService>();
    return new BarService(fooService);
}

Manually resolving services (aka Service Locator) is generally considered an anti-pattern. While it has its use-cases (for frameworks and/or infrastructure layers), you should avoid it as much as possible.

Solution 2

Manually resolving instances involves using the IServiceProvider interface:

Resolving Dependency in Startup.ConfigureServices

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddTransient<IMyService, MyService>();

    var serviceProvider = services.BuildServiceProvider();
    var service = serviceProvider.GetService<IMyService>();
}

Resolving Dependencies in Startup.Configure

public void Configure(
    IApplicationBuilder application,
    IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
{
    // By type.
    var service1 = (MyService)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(MyService));

    // Using extension method.
    var service2 = serviceProvider.GetService<MyService>();

    // ...
}

Resolving Dependencies in Startup.Configure in ASP.NET Core 3

public void Configure(
    IApplicationBuilder application,
    IWebHostEnvironment webHostEnvironment)
{
    application.ApplicationServices.GetService<MyService>();
}

Using Runtime Injected Services

Some types can be injected as method parameters:

public class Startup
{
    public Startup(
        IHostingEnvironment hostingEnvironment,
        ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
    {
    }

    public void ConfigureServices(
        IServiceCollection services)
    {
    }

    public void Configure(
        IApplicationBuilder application,
        IHostingEnvironment hostingEnvironment,
        IServiceProvider serviceProvider,
        ILoggerFactory loggerfactory,
        IApplicationLifetime applicationLifetime)
    {
    }
}

Resolving Dependencies in Controller Actions

[HttpGet("/some-action")]
public string SomeAction([FromServices] IMyService myService) => "Hello";

Solution 3

If you generate an application with a template you are going to have something like this on the Startup class:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    // Add framework services.
    services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry(Configuration);

    services.AddMvc();
}

You can then add dependencies there, for example:

services.AddTransient<ITestService, TestService>();

If you want to access ITestService on your controller you can add IServiceProvider on the constructor and it will be injected:

public HomeController(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)

Then you can resolve the service you added:

var service = serviceProvider.GetService<ITestService>();

Note that to use the generic version you have to include the namespace with the extensions:

using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

---

ITestService.cs

public interface ITestService
{
    int GenerateRandom();
}

TestService.cs

public class TestService : ITestService
{
    public int GenerateRandom()
    {
        return 4;
    }
}

Startup.cs (ConfigureServices)

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddApplicationInsightsTelemetry(Configuration);
    services.AddMvc();

    services.AddTransient<ITestService, TestService>();
}

HomeController.cs

using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

namespace Core.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        public HomeController(IServiceProvider serviceProvider)
        {
            var service = serviceProvider.GetService<ITestService>();
            int rnd = service.GenerateRandom();
        }

Solution 4

If you just need to resolve one dependency for the purpose of passing it to the constructor of another dependency you are registering, you can do this.

Let's say you had a service that took in a string and an ISomeService.

public class AnotherService : IAnotherService
{
    public AnotherService(ISomeService someService, string serviceUrl)
    {
        ...
    }
}

When you go to register this inside Startup.cs, you'll need to do this:

services.AddScoped<IAnotherService>(ctx => 
      new AnotherService(ctx.GetService<ISomeService>(), "https://someservice.com/")
);

Solution 5

You can inject dependencies in attributes like AuthorizeAttribute in this way

var someservice = (ISomeService)context.HttpContext.RequestServices.GetService(typeof(ISomeService));

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