What’s New with the Dapr .NET SDK
Dapr .NET SDK Github Repo | Dapr documentation for the .NET SDK | .NET SDK releases
Here’s a summary of the recent changes. They streamline target frameworks, introduce powerful analyzers, modernize APIs, expand conversation and workflow support, and improve reliability while preparing for future runtime integration. Here are the details:
Target Frameworks
- Dropped support for .NET 6 and 7 (EOL).
- Now targeting .NET 8 and 9, with .NET 10 support coming in a patch release for 1.16.
- Adoption of C# 12 syntax for performance improvements.
Analyzers & Developer Experience
- New Roslyn analyzers introduced, validating:
- Workflow and actor registration.
- Required actor handler mapping.
- Proper job-to-HTTP endpoint registration.
- Named actor timer callbacks.
- Recommended JSON serialization for workflow interop.
- Analyzers are packaged separately (Dapr.Analyzers, Dapr.Jobs.Analyzers, Dapr.Workflow.Analyzers).
- Documentation updated to explain suppressing diagnostics.
- General modernization to align with the latest runtime practices.
- Dapr.AI contains the latest Conversation API supporting roles and tool support.
New Features & Enhancements
- Conversation building block support (with known serialization issues; streaming support planned).
- Expanded Jobs support: overwrite policies, failure handling, updated docs.
- Distributed lock package released with API tweaks for easier use.
- [Experimental] attribute replace [Obsolete] for preview features.
- Support for third-party frameworks (e.g., Google’s A2Aframework, Microsoft.Extensions.AI integration).
- .NET Aspire support (docs + example with Dapr integration)
- Enhanced cryptography for large files with streaming/chunking.
- Pub/Sub fixes for metadata and docs.
- Jobs SDK improvements for deserialization, timers, reminders, and nullability consistency.
- Workflow SDK forked from Microsoft Durable Task to Dapr Durable Task with significant reliability improvements.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed the Cryptography API so it’s capable of handling large files (tested up to 32 GB).
- Pub/Sub bug fixes for metadata and documentation corrected for XML handling in Bulk Pub/Sub.
- Jobs SDK fixes for timer/reminder deserialization.
- Actor fixes to handle reminders & timers
- Workflow concurrency and scheduling bugs resolved.
Breaking Changes
- Removal of .NET 6/7 support.
- Switch from [Obsolete] to [Experimental] attribute for preview features.
Looking Ahead
- Deprecating improper use of CheckHealthAsync and WaitForSidecar.
- Planned streaming support for conversations.
- Improvements to HTTP client handling (integration with HttpClientFactory).
- Work toward automatic Dapr component file (YAML) generation via Aspire integration.
- Continued refactoring out of Dapr.Client into discrete packages for slimmer, modern SDK design.
Watch the full update on the Dapr YouTube channel.
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