ServiceStack default format

Question

I would like to set ServiceStack\'s default format to JSON, as opposed to the HTML formatted response it normally returns when a service is accessed from a browser. I know

Answer 1

Late to the question, but since I couldn't find the answer anywhere, I finally figured it out from ServiceStack's source code :)

The simplest way I found to default to Json instead of Html from the browser was this:

HttpRequestExtensions.PreferredContentTypes = new[] { MimeTypes.Json, MimeTypes.Xml };

Call this at the startup of your app, and it will override default's ServiceStack mime types and start with json (which will work with your browser's requests since / will match it).

Note that you should still disable Html and make Json the default mime type:

SetConfig(new HostConfig {
     DefaultContentType = MimeTypes.Json 
     EnableFeatures = Feature.All.Remove(Feature.Html),
});

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For the curious: ServiceStack uses internally HttpRequestExtensions.GetResponseContentType (see HttpRequestExtensions.cs), which loops through preferred content types. Because it contains MimeTypes.Html, it will catch the first accept type from the browser (text/html) and ignore whatever is coming after. By overriding this, text/html is not seen as a preferred content type, and it then skips to */* which defaults to json as expected.