Application Models

Code first

Design entities and verify/customize generated migrations

Verify schema definitions and changes

Per commit

N/A

Track entities, DbContext, and migrations

Database first

Reverse engineer after changes and verify generated entities

Inform developers when the database changes to re-scaffold

N/A

Per schema change

Track extensions/partial classes that extend the generated entities

Hybrid

Update fluent configuration to map whenever entities or database change

Inform developers when the database has changed so they can update entities and model configuration

N/A

N/A

Track entities and DbContext

Code First Approach

In the ASP.NET MVC framework, the code-first approach is a development model where you first write the code that creates the data access layer, then you write the code that creates the controllers and views.

In the code-first approach, you create a model, which is a class that represents the data in the application. Then you create a data access layer, which is a set of code that reads and writes data to a data store.

Note that a code-first approach does not have to use a database. You could use the code-first model to create any kind of data.

1. Install NuGet Packages

2. Create Model Classes

3. Configure the Database

4. Create Database using Migration

5. Update Database using Migration

Tutorial: Code First Approach in ASP.NET Core MVC with EFMedium

ASP.NET Core Web API with EF Core Code-First Approach - Code MazeCode Maze