User Management API

A simple RESTful API built with ASP.NET Core and PostgreSQL for managing users.

This project was created as a backend learning exercise to practice building APIs using C#, Entity Framework Core, and PostgreSQL.

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Technologies

• C#
• ASP.NET Core Web API
• Entity Framework Core
• PostgreSQL
• Swagger (OpenAPI)
• Git & GitHub
• DTO Pattern
• DataAnnotations

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Features

The API allows you to:

• Create a new user
• Retrieve all users
• Retrieve a user by ID
• Update user information
• Delete a user

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API Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/users	Get all users
GET	/api/users/{id}	Get a user by ID
POST	/api/users	Create a new user
PUT	/api/users/{id}	Update a user
DELETE	/api/users/{id}	Delete a user

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Architecture

The project follows a simple layered structure:

Controllers → handle HTTP requests  
DTOs → define API request and response models  
Models → represent database entities  
Data → Entity Framework database context  
Migrations → database schema history

DTOs are used to separate the API contract from the internal data model and to enable validation using DataAnnotations.

Database

This project uses PostgreSQL with Entity Framework Core for database management.

The database schema is managed using EF Core Migrations.

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How to Run the Project

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Lucas-aos/user-management-api-dotnet.git

2. Navigate to the project folder

cd user-management-api-dotnet

3. Configure the database connection

Edit the appsettings.json file and update the connection string with your PostgreSQL credentials.

Example:

"ConnectionStrings": {
  "DefaultConnection": "Host=localhost;Port=5432;Database=YourDatabase;Username=postgres;Password=yourpassword"
}

4. Apply database migrations

dotnet ef database update

5. Run the application

dotnet run

6. Open Swagger UI

Access Swagger in your browser:

http://localhost:5000/swagger

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Swagger UI

Below are examples of the API endpoints available through Swagger.

Endpoints Overview

Creating a User

Getting Users

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Learning Goals

This project was built to practice:

• Building REST APIs with ASP.NET Core
• Using Entity Framework Core
• Connecting a .NET API to PostgreSQL
• Implementing CRUD operations
• Using Git and GitHub for version control
• Using DTOs to separate API contracts from domain models
• Applying validation with DataAnnotations

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Author

Lucas Albuquerque