Project template

Cairn.Templates is a dotnet new template pack. It scaffolds an ASP.NET Core minimal API that is already wired for hypermedia — the pieces from Getting started assembled correctly, so you can run the project and see _links and _actions on the first request instead of wiring AddCairn, route names, and a LinkConfig<T> by hand.

Install and create

dotnet new install Cairn.Templates
dotnet new cairn-api -o Orders.Api
cd Orders.Api
dotnet run

Then start at the root and follow the links:

curl http://localhost:5256/
curl http://localhost:5256/orders/42

GET /orders/42 returns the order with its self/collection links and — because order 42 is Pending — a cancel action that disappears once the order ships or is cancelled.

Options

Option	Default	Description
-f, --framework	net10.0	Target framework: net10.0, net9.0, or net8.0 (LTS).
--explorer	true	Include the browsable HAL Explorer at /explorer (Development only).
--openapi	false	Document the hypermedia in Swagger via Cairn.Swashbuckle and serve Swagger UI in Development.

# An LTS project without the explorer, with Swagger docs:
dotnet new cairn-api -o Orders.Api -f net8.0 --explorer false --openapi true

What it generates

A single minimal-API project modelling a small orders resource — the smallest example that still shows the patterns you reuse in a real API:

File	What it demonstrates
Program.cs	AddCairn with the link configs registered, and endpoints that are each named (.WithName(...)) and opted in with .WithLinks().
Root.cs	The API entry point (/) — a home resource whose links let a client discover the rest.
Orders.cs	Plain DTOs with their hypermedia declared separately in LinkConfig<T>, a state-conditional cancel affordance, an _embedded collection, and a HAL-FORMS create form derived from an input type.
Store.cs	A tiny in-memory store so the actions round-trip. Replace it with your data layer.

Link targets use the generated Routes.* catalog (see Route safety) rather than magic strings, so a renamed endpoint is a compile error, not a broken link at runtime.

Template, sample, and guide

Three onboarding paths, each with a different job:

• This template seeds a new project you own and evolve — it references the published Cairn packages and gives you a clean, correct starting point.
• The sample API is a read-only reference that exercises more of the surface (controllers, cross-resource links, customers) in one place.
• Getting started teaches the wiring step by step, so you understand what the template generated.

The template pack ships with the same version as the Cairn libraries, and a generated project references that matching version. See Packages for the full package list.