Lesson 0.3: Get Bowire running

Difficulty: Beginner | Duration: 8 min | Prerequisites: .NET 10 SDK

Overview

Before any course, you need a workbench open in your browser. This lesson gets you there with the least ceremony — pick one of the paths below. It's onboarding, not a deep dive: the full CLI story is Unit 3, the full embedded story is Unit 4. Every course assumes you've done this once.

Fastest path — run a sample that already embeds Bowire

The Harbor Combined sample in Bowire.Samples embeds Bowire, so running it gives you a workbench with no install and no CLI:

# in a clone of Bowire.Samples
cd harbor-demo/src/Kuestenlogik.Bowire.Samples.Combined
dotnet run                      # → http://localhost:5101

Open http://localhost:5101/bowire. You have a workbench, already pointed at a multi-protocol service. This is all Unit 1 (the UI course) needs.

Or — install the CLI and point it at any service

The standalone tool launches a workbench against any URL:

dotnet tool install --global Kuestenlogik.Bowire.Tool
bowire --version

# point it at a sample (the protocols/ demos don't embed Bowire):
#   cd Bowire.Samples/protocols/Rest.PetStore && dotnet run
bowire --url http://localhost:<port>          # opens http://localhost:5080

The CLI is the daily driver for the Integrator / DevOps / Admin course — Unit 3 covers it in full.

Or — embed it in your own host

If you're building your own ASP.NET service, two lines mount the workbench inside it:

builder.Services.AddBowire();
app.MapBowire();                 // workbench at /<host>/bowire

That's the Developer course's path — Unit 4 covers DI, auth, config and gating.

Or — drive it from VS Code

If the API you are working on is open in an editor, the workbench can be too:

ext install kuestenlogik.bowire-vscode

Then run Bowire: Open Workbench from the Command Palette.

The extension does not bundle Bowire. It drives a CLI — the one already on your PATH, or one it offers to fetch — so the workbench in your editor, your terminal and your CI are the same binary reading the same collections. A collection you save in the side panel is the file the pipeline reads.

Point it at a specific build with .vscode/settings.json, which supports ${workspaceFolder} so a project-local copy can be committed and shared:

{ "bowire.cliPath": "${workspaceFolder}/tools/bowire" }

When nothing is found, bowire.autoDownload decides what happens — prompt by default, with always and never also available.

Verify

Whichever path you picked, the workbench — in a browser tab, or in the VS Code panel — should render the rail strip on the left and a sidebar populated by auto-discovery. If it does, you're set. (No separate browser-client install — the workbench is served by whichever process you started.)

Key Takeaways

  1. You need a running workbench before the courses — pick the path that matches where you're headed.
  2. Fastest for the UI course: run the embedded Harbor Combined sample → :5101/bowire, zero install.
  3. CLI (bowire --url) and embedded (AddBowire/MapBowire) are covered in depth in Units 3 and 4.

What's Next

Continue: → Lesson 0.4: How this bootcamp works