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microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet

Five lessons to stop treating AI like magic and ship .NET apps

This repo is a hands-on course that gives .NET developers working code and short videos to ship GenAI features without drowning in theory first.

3.1k stars C# Learning
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What it does

It is a five-lesson curriculum that teaches .NET developers how to embed generative AI into real applications. Each lesson pairs a short video with fully functional C# samples covering chat, embeddings, RAG, and agents. The course targets Azure OpenAI and Microsoft Foundry, though you can also point the samples at local models via Ollama.

The interesting bit

The course treats Microsoft’s Agent Framework as a first-class citizen, with over two dozen samples that move from basic console chat to multi-agent workflows and hosted containerized agents. It also bridges Claude models into the .NET ecosystem through a custom message handler, which is more vendor-neutral than you might expect from an official Microsoft course.

Key highlights

  • Five structured lessons from basic concepts to responsible AI guardrails.
  • Working C# samples for chat, semantic search, document processing, and multi-agent orchestration.
  • Tight integration with GitHub Codespaces for a pre-configured editing environment.
  • Support for both cloud (Azure OpenAI / Microsoft Foundry) and local (Ollama) model hosting.
  • Translated READMEs in eight languages.

Caveats

  • The agent framework recently shipped a breaking namespace change (Microsoft.Agents.AI.AzureAI to Microsoft.Agents.AI.Foundry), so older forks may need updating.
  • The curriculum is heavily skewed toward Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Foundry, and the Microsoft Agent Framework; developers looking for stack-agnostic patterns will have to filter out the vendor specifics.

Verdict

Worth bookmarking if you are a .NET developer who learns by building and needs a guided tour of the Microsoft AI stack. Skip it if you are already shipping production agents or want a framework-agnostic, theory-deep curriculum.

Frequently asked

What is microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet?
This repo is a hands-on course that gives .NET developers working code and short videos to ship GenAI features without drowning in theory first.
Is Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet open source?
Yes — microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet is open source, released under the MIT license.
What language is Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet written in?
microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet is primarily written in C#.
How popular is Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet?
microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet has 3.1k stars on GitHub and is currently holding steady.
Where can I find Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet?
microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet is on GitHub at https://github.com/microsoft/Generative-AI-for-beginners-dotnet.

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