My previous post showed how easy it is to develop a .NET C# MCP server and write a client able to communicate with it. Now, the question is how we can distribute our MCP server to be used by AI clients. In this post, we'll leverage the knowledge acquired from my previous posts to explore how to dockerize your .NET C# MCP server.
In my previous post, I demonstrated how to use C# with Microsoft.Extensions.AI, Ollama, and a nuget package called mcpdotnet to interact with an existing MCP Server. Since then, mcpdotnet has been elevated to become the "official C# SDK for Model Context Protocol servers and clients, maintained by Microsoft".
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that enables seamless integration between AI systems and various data sources, allowing developers to create context-aware applications. In this post, we'll explore how to build a simple MCP server using C# and the modelcontextprotocol / csharp-sdk library, which simplifies the process of creating and managing MCP servers.
In the previous post "Leveraging Microsoft.Extensions.AI for Tool Calling in C#", we explored how to create custom tools that enhance the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs). We demonstrated how integrating these technologies enables developers to build applications with advanced AI capabilities, facilitating more complex interactions.
In this post, we'll take a step further and explore how to leverage Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers to utilize external Tools and AI models in C# applications. We'll continue using Ollama to run local AI models.
.NET Aspire 9.1 was just released on February 25th, 2025. It comes with great new dashboard features, and there is more! One feature I am particularly interested in is the ability to use Dev Containers.
In this post, I will show you how to use the new .NET Aspire 9.1 with a Dev Container and JetBrains Rider. You could also use Visual Studio Code.
