Every year, .NET Conf brings developers from around the world together to celebrate what’s new, what’s next, and what’s possible with .NET.

This year’s event, .NET Conf 2025, runs November 11 ‐ 13 and marks the arrival of .NET 10, a major milestone for developers building modern, intelligent, and cloud-native applications.

Trailhead at .NET Conf 2025

Don’t miss Trailhead’s own Jonathan “J.” Tower presenting:

“Old API, New Tricks: Add MCP to Existing .NET REST Endpoints”

on Thursday, November 13 at .NET Conf 2025. After two days of hearing from the .NET from Microsoft on November 11 and 12, .NET conf’s final day turns to the most-trusted experts in the software community to help you dive even deeper into what is possible with .NET 10.

In his talk, J will explore how you can breathe new life into your existing ASP.NET Core APIs by adding Model Creation Protocol (MCP) capabilities. Using the MCP C# SDK, he’ll wrap and annotate existing controllers and instantly transform the existing REST endpoints into AI-powered services that large language models and agents can call directly. By the end, you’ll see how to evolve your APIs from simple HTTP-based data providers into intelligent, task-focused tools that empower AI systems, all without rewriting your stack from scratch.

What’s New in .NET 10

.NET 10, Microsoft’s newest long-term support (LTS) version of .NET, is shaping up to be a performance-forward, productivity-enhancing release that builds on the foundations of .NET 8 and 9. One of the most significant changes lies in the runtime and JIT compiler, including optimizations for struct argument passing, smarter inlining, and better loop transformations to reduce memory traffic and boost execution efficiency. These runtime-level tweaks, though subtle, can yield meaningful gains in throughput and latency in real-world applications.

On the web and API side, ASP.NET Core and Blazor receive a fresh wave of enhancements. Blazor’s static assets and script delivery are handled as compressed, fingerprinted static web assets that improve load performance and caching. The [Route] attribute has better inline route-template support in editors, Minimal APIs and validation are smoother, and OpenAPI 3.1 support aligns endpoint contracts with modern JSON Schema. Observability also improves with new identity and authentication metrics.

AI gets first-class attention. The Microsoft.Extensions.AI stack matures with cleaner abstractions for prompts, tool calling, and model clients, making it easier to swap local and cloud models without redesigning your pipelines. EF Core 10 adds built-in vector column support and similarity functions for SQL Server and Azure SQL, so you can store embeddings and run search in-database. OpenAPI 3.1 makes your APIs more machine-readable for agents and MCP clients, and .NET Aspire’s service defaults help wire up telemetry, service discovery, and resilient HttpClient usage across AI-powered services.

In the tooling and SDK space, .NET 10 brings smarter support for file-based apps, enabling them to be published as native AOT executables with commands like dotnet publish app.cs, along with project referencing directives and improved shebang support. .NET MAUI templates are now more tightly integrated with .NET Aspire, providing built-in wiring for telemetry, service discovery, and HttpClient defaults.

And keep an eye on Visual Studio 2026. Microsoft has already rolled out an Insiders preview with AI features, performance improvements, and a refreshed design, making it plausible that VS 2026 will be a highlight at .NET Conf or closely timed with the release.

In the libraries, new cryptography capabilities, JSON serialization improvements, and Span/Tensor-focused APIs round things out. EF Core also gains JSON type mapping, refined complex types, and broader capabilities for modern data patterns. Together, these changes are less about flashy syntax and more about maturing the platform across performance, observability, AI readiness, and modern app design.

How .NET Conf Works

If you’ve never joined .NET Conf, it’s a free, online, community-driven event where you can catch the latest announcements, watch technical deep dives, and hear from industry experts. Sessions are live-streamed and recorded, so you can tune in from anywhere and connect with the .NET community around the world. The recorded sessions usually come online a few hours or a few days later, so if you want to stay up-to-date, make sure you catch sessions live when you can.

.NET 10 is a major step forward, and .NET Conf 2025 is your chance to explore it firsthand. Check out the full session list at dotnetconf.net, and find out when “Old API, New Tricks: Add MCP to Existing .NET REST Endpoints” will take place in your local timezone.

Let’s learn how to build the next generation of intelligent apps together with .NET 10 at .NET Conf 2025!