Configuring Dbcontext as Transient

Question

In ASP.NET Core / EntityFramework Core, the services.AddDbContext<> method will add the specified context as a scoped service. It's my understanding that that is the suggested lifetime management for the dbcontext by Microsoft.

However, there is much debate in our engineer department over this and many feel that the context needs to be disposed of ASAP. So, what is the best way to configure the dbcontext as Transient that still maintains the same Repository pattern typically used (i.e. injecting the context directly into the repository's constructor) as well as supporting flexible unit testing?

Answer 1

The lifetime is a parameter on AddDbContext<>(). See example:

services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
         options.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection")), 
         ServiceLifetime.Transient);

This will add it to the service collection with transient lifetime.