Sylin.Koan.Canon.Web 0.17.0

Koan Framework

Model your domain as entities. Reference your intents. Koan composes the rest — storage, web, AI, jobs, caching — and tells you exactly what it did.

Koan is a .NET 10 meta-framework for agentic, data-driven web applications — think Rails for .NET, built for the era where AI capability is part of the domain model and a lot of your code is written with coding agents. One grammar — Entity<T> — covers CRUD, REST, vector search, background jobs, caching, embeddings, and agent (MCP) tools.

Status: pre-1.0, consolidation phase (version via NBGV, currently 0.17.x). The core — entity/data pillar, web, cache, jobs, vector — is settled and integration-tested; several outer pillars are experimental and being consolidated or cut. We audit ourselves: see the framework assessment and the per-pillar maturity model for exactly what is settled and what isn't. Until 1.0, build from source — published packages (Sylin.Koan.* on NuGet) lag the repo.

60 seconds to a running app

git clone https://github.com/sylin-org/koan-framework
cd koan-framework
dotnet run --project samples/S1.Web
# → browse http://localhost:5044  ·  curl http://localhost:5044/api/health

You'll see the framework introduce itself before the first request — what got discovered, which adapters won, what capabilities they negotiated:

┌─ [KOAN] Application ─────────────────────────────
│  Name: S1.Web · Environment: Development
│  Registry: initializers, auto-registrars, background services
│  Inventory: Koan.Core, Koan.Data.Core, Koan.Web, Koan.Data.Connector.Sqlite, …
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────
[K:PHASE] warmup→registry→data→services→ready

(abridged — run it to see the real thing)

That boot report is the framework's character in one screen: the app explains itself.

The whole framework in three beats

1 · Model an entity → get an application

// Program.cs — complete. Nothing else to wire.
var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddKoan();
var app = builder.Build();
app.Run();

public sealed class Todo : Entity<Todo>
{
    public string Title { get; set; } = "";
    public bool IsCompleted { get; set; }
}

[Route("api/[controller]")]
public sealed class TodoController : EntityController<Todo> { }

That's a full REST API: GET/POST/DELETE with pagination and querying, GUID v7 ids generated on first read, /api/health, structured logging, and zero-config SQLite (./data/app.db). Schema is created automatically in development. JSON defaults: camelCase, nulls omitted (Newtonsoft.Json — chosen for predictable polymorphic serialization).

Working with entities is direct — no repositories, no DbContext:

var todo = await Todo.Get(id);                       // null if missing
var open = await Todo.Query(t => !t.IsCompleted);    // pushed down to the store
await new Todo { Title = "Try Koan" }.Save();
await todo.Remove();
await foreach (var t in Todo.AllStream(batchSize: 1000)) { /* streams, no materialization */ }

2 · Reference an intent → gain a capability

Adding a package is the configuration. Each line below is one package reference and (at most) one attribute:

// dotnet add package Sylin.Koan.Data.Connector.Postgres  → same entities, Postgres storage
// dotnet add package Sylin.Koan.Cache                    → transparent L1/L2 caching:
[Cacheable(300)]
public sealed class Todo : Entity<Todo> { /* … */ }

// dotnet add package Sylin.Koan.Messaging.Connector.RabbitMq → cross-process events:
await new TodoCompleted { TodoId = todo.Id }.Send();

// dotnet add package Sylin.Koan.Jobs → durable background work, jobs are entities too:
public sealed class ImportJob : Entity<ImportJob>, IKoanJob<ImportJob>
{
    public string Source { get; set; } = "";
    public static async Task Execute(ImportJob job, JobContext ctx, CancellationToken ct)
    { /* runs on the ledger: at-least-once, retries, scheduling, progress */ }
}

// dotnet add package Sylin.Koan.Data.AI (+ an Ollama + vector connector)
// → entities become semantically searchable:
[Embedding(Properties = new[] { nameof(Title) })]
public sealed class Todo : Entity<Todo> { /* embeddings maintained in the background */ }

var related = await SemanticSearch<Todo>("groceries and meal planning");
// using static Koan.Data.AI.EntityEmbeddingExtensions;

// dotnet add package Sylin.Koan.Mcp → entities become agent tools over HTTP/SSE:
[McpEntity]
public sealed class Todo : Entity<Todo> { /* agents can now query and mutate Todos */ }

Backends differ, and Koan refuses to pretend otherwise: every adapter declares its capabilities, the framework negotiates them, and an unsupported operation fails loudly instead of silently degrading.

if (Data<Todo, string>.Capabilities.Has(DataCaps.Query.Linq))
{
    // this query runs inside the database, not in memory
}

3 · The app explains itself

Beyond the boot report: capability sets are queryable at runtime, well-known endpoints describe the running service, health contributors aggregate readiness, and [McpEntity] exposes your domain to agents through the same endpoint service the REST controllers use. The framework's discovery isn't reflection magic at runtime — it's a Roslyn source-generated registry compiled into your assemblies: deterministic, ordered, AOT-friendly.

What's distinctive (and actually shipped)

• One grammar everywhere — the same Entity<T> is your table row, your REST resource, your cache entry, your job, your embedding source, and your agent tool.
• Capability-graded multi-provider — SQLite, Postgres, SQL Server, MongoDB, Couchbase, Redis, JSON-file storage; Weaviate, Qdrant, Milvus, Elasticsearch, OpenSearch vectors — behind one API that negotiates features (pushdown, bulk ops, CAS, TTL) rather than faking parity. A cross-adapter convergence oracle tests that every adapter agrees with the reference semantics.
• Background jobs as entities (JOBS-0005) — a capability ladder from in-memory to durable-ledger to distributed competing consumers, with cron/@boot scheduling, idempotency, chains, and contention-free claims.
• Transparent entity caching — [Cacheable] L1/L2 with cross-node coherence and a principled fresh-or-null contract (stale reads are opt-in, never a surprise).
• AI as a property of your data — [Embedding] keeps vectors in sync in the background; semantic search is a query, not a subsystem you build.
• Decision-first engineering — 280+ ADRs, integration-tests-as-canon, and a self-assessment you can read. The architecture is auditable, not asserted.

Learn it

Requirements: .NET 10 SDK. Docker/Podman only for container-backed samples and integration tests. Coding agents: start at CLAUDE.md and .claude/skills/.

Contributing

Single-maintainer project in active consolidation ("fewer but more meaningful parts"). Issues and discussions welcome; PRs should follow the ADR-first workflow and keep the green ratchet green (scripts/green-ratchet.ps1). See docs/engineering.

Licensed under Apache 2.0.