Generative AI for Beginners .NET - A Course

Practical lessons teaching you how to build Generative AI applications in .NET

Welcome to Generative AI for Beginners .NET, the hands-on course for .NET developers diving into the world of Generative AI!

This isn’t your typical “here’s some theory, good luck” course. This repository is all about real-world applications and live coding to empower .NET developers to take full advantage of Generative AI.

This is hands-on, practical, and designed to be fun!

Don't forget to star (🌟) this repo to find it easier later.

➡️Get your own copy by Forking this repo and find it next in your own repositories.

✨ What's New!

We're constantly improving this course with the latest AI tools and models:

• eShopLite Repository: All eShopLite scenarios are now available in a single repository: https://aka.ms/eshoplite/repo

  The repository includes scenarios such as: Semantic Search (keyword and semantic search), Azure AI Search (SQL and vector search with Azure AI Search), Realtime Audio (advanced search and real-time audio with GPT models), Chroma DB (semantic search using Chroma DB), DeepSeek-R1 (integration for enhanced semantic search using a reasoning model), and Model Context Protocol (MCP) for advanced AI interactions with MCP Servers and Clients.

View all previous updates in our What's New section

🚀 Introduction

Generative AI is transforming software development, and .NET is no exception. This course aims to simplify the journey by offering:

• Short 5-10 minute videos for each lesson.
• Fully functional .NET code samples you can run and explore.
• Integration with tools like GitHub Codespaces and GitHub Models for seamless setup and fast time-to-code. But if you want to run the samples locally with your own models, you can totally do that too.

You'll learn how to implement Generative AI into .NET projects, from basic text generation to building full-fledged solutions using GitHub Models, Azure OpenAI Services and local models with Ollama.

📦 Each Lesson Includes

• Short Video: A quick overview of the lesson (5-10 minutes).
• Complete Code Samples: Fully functional and ready to run.
• Step-by-Step Guidance: Simple instructions to help you learn and implement the concepts.
• Deep Dive References: This course focuses on the practical implementation of GenAI, to get deeper into the theoretical we also provide links to explanations in Generative AI for Beginners - A Course when needed.

🗃️ Lessons

🌐 Multi-Language Support

🛠️ What You Need

To get started, you'll need:

1. A GitHub account (free is fine!) to fork this entire repo to your own GitHub account.

2. GitHub Codespaces enabled for instant coding environments. You can enable GitHub Codespaces in your repository settings. Learn more about GitHub Codespaces here.

3. Create your copy by Forking this repo, or use the Fork button at the top of this page.

4. A basic understanding of .NET development. Learn more about .NET here.

And that's it.

We've designed this course to be as low-friction as possible. We make use of the following to help you get started quickly:

• Run in GitHub Codespaces: With one click, you'll get a pre-configured environment to test and explore the lessons.
• Leverage GitHub Models: Try out AI-powered demos hosted directly within this repo, we explain more in the lessons, as we go. (If you want to learn more about GitHub Models, click here)

Then when you're ready to expand we also have guides for:

• Upgrading to Azure OpenAI Services for scalable and enterprise-ready solutions.
• Using Ollama to run models locally on your hardware for enhanced privacy and control.

🤝 Want to Help?

Contributions are welcome! Here's how you can help:

• Report issues or bugs in the repo.

• Improve existing code samples or add new ones, fork this repo and propose some changes!

• Suggest additional lessons or enhancements.

• Do you have suggestions or found spelling or code errors?, create a pull request

Check the CONTRIBUTING.MD file for details on how to get involved.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🌐 Other Courses

We have a lot of other content to help your learning journey. Check out:

• Generative AI for Beginners
• Generative AI for Beginners .NET
• Generative AI with JavaScript
• AI for Beginners
• AI Agents for Beginners - A Course
• Data Science for Beginners
• ML for Beginners
• Cybersecurity for Beginners
• Web Dev for Beginners
• IoT for Beginners
• XR Development for Beginners
• Mastering GitHub Copilot for Paired Programming
• Mastering GitHub Copilot for C#/.NET Developers
• Choose Your Own Copilot Adventure
• Phi Cookbook: Hands-On Examples with Microsoft's Phi Models

Let's start learning Generative AI and .NET! 🚀