Auto-Discovery

Bowire automatically discovers available services and methods without manual configuration. Each protocol plugin implements its own discovery mechanism.

How It Works

When the Bowire UI loads, it calls the /bowire/api/services endpoint. This triggers each registered protocol plugin's DiscoverAsync method, which scans for available services.

• gRPC -- queries gRPC Server Reflection to enumerate services, methods, and protobuf schemas
• SignalR -- scans the application's EndpointDataSource for mapped hubs with HubMetadata, then reflects hub methods to determine parameter types, return types, and streaming direction
• SSE -- finds endpoints marked with [SseEndpoint], endpoints producing text/event-stream, or manually registered via AddBowireSseEndpoint()

What Gets Discovered

For each service, Bowire discovers:

• Service name -- fully qualified (e.g., weather.WeatherService for gRPC, ChatHub for SignalR)
• Methods -- all callable methods with their call type (unary, server streaming, client streaming, duplex)
• Input schema -- field names, types, and nesting for request messages
• Output schema -- field names and types for response messages
• Protocol badge -- which protocol the service belongs to

Filtering Internal Services

By default, internal services like grpc.reflection.v1alpha.ServerReflection are hidden. Enable them with:

app.MapBowire(options =>
{
    options.ShowInternalServices = true;
});

Requirements

• gRPC: AddGrpcReflection() and MapGrpcReflectionService() must be configured
• SignalR: hubs must be mapped with MapHub<T>() before MapBowire()
• SSE: endpoints must be annotated or registered before MapBowire()

See also: Protocols for protocol-specific discovery details.