Chris Ayers

The catalog looks wrong. Before changing the API, you want to answer a smaller question: are the expected products actually in its database? Logs tell you what the application reported. A database query lets you inspect the stored rows directly. Aspire 13.6.4 can open an opt-in PostgreSQL client beside the dashboard, without making you find a port, install psql, or copy a password.

Starting a frontend, an API, and a database is straightforward. Knowing which address each process should use, when its dependencies are ready, and where a failed request went is the harder part. In the catalog companion, Load catalog can return HTTP 503 while the API and inventory service both report healthy. Nothing has to crash for the application to fail.

You reproduce an intermittent failure, change one line, and restart the application. This time the request works. Now you need the old trace to work out why. If it disappeared with the restart, you’re left comparing the new run with whatever you remember. Aspire 13.6’s dashboard keeps completed runs, so you can go back to the failed request instead.1

Stop manually installing tools on a fresh Windows machine — declare what you want and let WinGet DSC handle the rest.

Extending GitHub Copilot with reusable, shareable AI capabilities

I just renewed six Microsoft certifications, keeping my skills current across Azure architecture, security, networking, and AI.