Managing Dependencies in .NET

Many .NET teams have solved the hard problem of writing good software, but struggle with the equally important problem of knowing what that software is actually running. Dependencies accumulate silently over time, many pulled in transitively by packages the team never examined, and the result is a growing liability of undetected vulnerabilities, indefinitely deferred upgrades, and third-party libraries so deeply embedded in domain logic that touching any of them feels like defusing a bomb. In this course, Managing Dependencies in .NET, you'll learn a repeatable, practical set of practices for taking back control of your dependency tree. First, you'll explore dependency visibility and risk assessment, learning how to generate a software bill of materials using CycloneDX, run software composition analysis to surface vulnerabilities, and prioritize what needs attention. Next, you'll discover safe dependency change, where you will build the safety nets that make modifying any dependency a confident act by writing characterization tests, implementing anti-corruption layers, and running contract tests to verify that a replacement is behaviorally equivalent to what it replaced. Finally, you'll explore how to apply the wrap, replace, or rewrite economics framework to make sound decisions about when and how to act, and document deferral decisions using architecture decision records so that technical debt remains visible, owned, and shrinking rather than silently compounding into a crisis. When you're finished with this course, you'll have the skills and knowledge of modern dependency management needed to identify what you are shipping, change it safely, and keep it healthy.
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