Getting Started with Refit

Refit is a library for generating type-safe HTTP clients in .NET. It allows you to turn your API into a live interface with annotated methods that represent your API endpoints! Refit then generates an implementation of that interface at runtime using your HTTPClient, providing a simple and type-safe way to make HTTP requests and handle responses.

In order to get started with Refit, do the following activities

Installing Refit Package

Install-Package Refit

Configuration

Add HttpClient with base URL in Startup or Configuration class

After installing the Refit package, it can be configured to use a specific HTTP client implementation in your Startup or Configuration class as follows:

    services.AddHttpClient("MyApiClient", client =>
    {
        client.BaseAddress = new Uri("https://api.example.com/");//Replace with your base URL
    });

Add Refit API interface with HttpClient in Startup or Configuration class

    services.AddRefitClient<IMyApi>() //Replace with the name of your API interface
        .ConfigureHttpClient(c => c.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("ApiKey", "YOUR_API_KEY"))//Replace with API header name and API key value
        .SetHandlerLifetime(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10)) // Adjust the lifetime as needed
        .AddHttpMessageHandler<YourCustomHandler>(); // Add any custom handlers if required

Sample Usage

After installing Refit and configuring with your HTTP client, this is a sample use case to see how it works.

Define API Interface representing API endpoints

    public interface IMyApi
    {
        [Get("/users/{id}")]
        Task<User> GetUser(string id);

        [Post("/users")]
        Task<User> CreateUser([Body] User user);

        [Put("/users/{id}")]
        Task<User> UpdateUser(string id, [Body] User user);

        [Delete("/users/{id}")]
        Task DeleteUser(string id);
    }

Inject API interface and consume API enpoint methods in Services or anywhere in your code!

    public class UserService
    {
        private readonly IMyApi _myApi;

        public UserService(IMyApi myApi)
        {
            _myApi = myApi;
        }

        public async Task<User> GetUser(string id)
        {
            return await _myApi.GetUser(id);
        }

        public async Task<User> CreateUser(User user)
        {
            return await _myApi.CreateUser(user);
        }

        public async Task<User> UpdateUser(string id, User user)
        {
            return await _myApi.UpdateUser(id, user);
        }

        public async Task DeleteUser(string id)
        {
            await _myApi.DeleteUser(id);
        }
    }

Further Readings

Follow this link to learn more.

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