AddEFMigrations's WaitForCompletion resource causes a sibling project's WithReference-derived environment variables (e.g. from an Orleans service) to go missing

[michaelmcneilnet]

Description

When a project resource has both:

• .WithReference(someLogicalService) — e.g. an Orleans service added via AddOrleans(...)
• .WaitForCompletion(migrationsResource), where migrationsResource comes from AddEFMigrations(...).RunDatabaseUpdateOnStart() (Aspire.Hosting.EntityFrameworkCore, currently preview)

...the environment variables that WithReference should inject onto the project (in our case, the Orleans__* block: Orleans__ClusterId, Orleans__Clustering__ProviderType, Orleans__Endpoints__*, Orleans__GrainStorage__*, etc.) are silently absent from the resulting process's environment. No error, no warning — the project just starts without them, which in our case meant Orleans could never resolve IMembershipTable and the silo crashed on startup:

System.InvalidOperationException: Unable to resolve service for type 'Orleans.IMembershipTable'
while attempting to activate 'Orleans.Runtime.MembershipService.MembershipTableManager'.

Environment variables set via plain .WithEnvironment("Key", "value") on the same resource are not affected — only the computed/reference-derived ones.

Repro

var builder = DistributedApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

var db = builder.AddPostgres("pg").AddDatabase("appdb");

var storage = builder.AddAzureStorage("storage")
    .RunAsEmulator();
var grainStorage = storage.AddBlobs("grainstate");

var orleans = builder.AddOrleans("default")
    .WithGrainStorage("Default", grainStorage)
    .WithDevelopmentClustering()
    .WithMemoryReminders();

var api = builder.AddProject<Projects.Api>("api")
    .WithReference(orleans)
    .WithReference(db);

// Adding this — a migrations resource the project waits on — is what
// makes api's Orleans__* environment variables disappear.
var migrations = api.AddEFMigrations("api-migrations")
    .WithReference(db)
    .WaitFor(db)
    .RunDatabaseUpdateOnStart();
api.WaitForCompletion(migrations);

builder.Build().Run();

Inspecting api's Environment tab in the Aspire dashboard shows none of the Orleans__* keys present, only whatever was set via literal .WithEnvironment() calls elsewhere. Removing api.WaitForCompletion(migrations) (while keeping everything else, including the AddEFMigrations resource itself) restores the Orleans__* variables.

Confirmed via git bisect

We bisected our own repo's history and found the exact commit that introduced this: the only change in that commit affecting the api project was adding the AddEFMigrations(...).WaitFor(db).RunDatabaseUpdateOnStart() resource and the api.WaitForCompletion(migrations) call shown above. No other change to api, the Orleans wiring, or storage wiring was made in that commit.

Versions

• Aspire.Hosting.Orleans: 13.4.6
• Aspire.Hosting.EntityFrameworkCore: 13.4.6-preview.1.26319.6 — still a preview package, see note below
• Microsoft.Orleans.Server / Clustering.AzureStorage / Reminders.AzureStorage / Persistence.AzureStorage: 10.2.1
• .NET 10, Aspire AppHost SDK 13.4.6
• Reproduced both via aspire start (CLI) and via Visual Studio's own AppHost debug launch — same result either way, so this isn't launcher-specific.

Notes

We haven't tested whether this is specific to AddEFMigrations/WaitForCompletion as a general pattern, or specific to Aspire.Hosting.EntityFrameworkCore itself (still a preview package). We'd guess it's more likely the latter, since AddEFMigrations builds its own derived resource and env var wiring around the target project (api in our repro), and it seems more plausible that this preview integration interferes with api's own environment computation than that WaitForCompletion alone (a much more widely used, non-preview API) has this effect. Worth checking whether the same WithReference + WaitForCompletion pattern reproduces with a plain custom resource in place of AddEFMigrations, to rule that in or out — we haven't had a chance to isolate it that far yet.

[joperezr]

🤖 Aspire triage pass — 2026-07-22 14:13 UTC

Area: area-integrations
Kind: bug
Repro: yes-minimal — see the "Repro" code block in the issue body
Affected version(s): 13.4.6; Aspire.Hosting.EntityFrameworkCore 13.4.6-preview.1 (preview); latest: 13.4.x line
Severity: S3 — silent loss of WithReference-derived environment variables is a serious symptom, but the scenario is narrow and involves a preview integration (AddEFMigrations / Aspire.Hosting.EntityFrameworkCore)

Urgency: 🟡 vNext — recommend milestone 13.5
Reason: clean minimal repro of a core interaction (WithReference + WaitForCompletion) with silent env-var loss, but not a confirmed regression introduced in 13.4 — the reporter's bisect was in their own repo's history (the offending commit added AddEFMigrations), not against Aspire versions, so there is no evidence the same scenario worked in a prior 13.x. Reporter also suspects the preview EFCore integration rather than core WaitForCompletion.

Suggested owner(s): @sebastienros (score 17), backup @davidfowl (score 16)
Evidence:

• sebastienros closed as completed Sunset Github Models integration #18402, PostgreSQL run fails after upgrading to 13.4 #17907, TypeScript AddJavaScriptApp silently reuses discovered Dockerfile entrypoint and ignores runScriptName / withRunScript #16957, Foundry deployment missing individual env var for AI inference endpoint #16280, Polyglot-Compatible Integration Discovery #15320 in area-integrations (last 180d) — 8 total
• davidfowl merged Fix cross-scope ACR pull identities #18742, Add App Service delegated subnet support #18738 in area-integrations (last 90d) plus 5 closed-completed
• CODEOWNERS lists @radical @eerhardt @sebastienros for /src/Components
• Note: root cause is likely inside the preview Aspire.Hosting.EntityFrameworkCore integration; @eerhardt / @AndriySvyryd (EF Core) may be more specific owners if the culprit is confirmed there — hence medium confidence on ownership

Confidence: medium
Needs human?: no

Dry-run mode — no labels or milestone applied. Reply /triage apply to promote, or edit and reapply.