In this repository I prototype spinning up an ephemeral SQL Server LocalDB instance for EF Core. This should be useful as a replacement for the in-memory provider most commonly used for tests. The advantage of using this over it should be the option of ExecuteSql/FromSql, views, UDFs etc.

It works by invoking sqllocaldb to create and delete the instance. The instance ben be scoped to both a file name and an assembly name, so one DB per executable path or per any instance of application on the system, respectively.

Creating and deleting the database will be encapsulated in the UseLocalDb extension method if it is possible to hook into the DB context destructor from there. We need that to be able to release the SQL LocalDB instance. Additionally, for all but NewGuid scopes we will need to make sure the context is last so that we do not stop and delete the instance prematurely.

Tests are usually ran not only locally, but also as a part of continuous integration / delivery. I aim to also find out if SQL Server LocalDB can be installed into Azure Pipelines so that this solution could work in both a developer's local environment as well as the remote build scenario.

It should be: https://github.com/Microsoft/azure-pipelines-image-generation/issues/34

If it is not present in the GA Microsoft hosted pipelines, it looks like the only option would be to use a self-hosted agent with LocalDB installed in its image. But maybe there are other options.