Hard-learned lessons from 15+ DevExpress XAF projects, distilled into reusable Claude Code skills.
These skills prevent AI coding agents from hitting the silent gotchas that make XAF + EF Core development painful.
| Skill | What it covers |
|---|---|
| xaf-efcore-entities | Entity authoring: virtual properties, no OwnsOne, BaseObjectInt, ObservableCollection, decimal precision, PostgreSQL DateTime trap, GCRecord indexes, ValueConverters |
| xaf-blazor-startup | Startup.cs configuration: service registration order, middleware pipeline, JWT auth, OData/Web API, module lifecycle, non-persistent objects |
| xaf-security | Permissions: type/object/member-level security, role export/import, PermissionsReloadMode, background job auth, CurrentUserIdOperator |
| xaf-reporting | ReportsV2: parameter objects, Visible=false gotcha, GetCriteria() vs FilterString, PredefinedReportsUpdater |
| devexpress-xaf-docker | Containerizing XAF Blazor: SkiaSharp native deps, DevExpress version pinning, PostgreSQL/MySQL provider setup, schema initialization |
| Skill | What it covers |
|---|---|
| xaf-hangfire-jobs | Command/Handler jobs with zero XAF dependency, HangfireJobDispatcher vs DirectJobDispatcher, JobDefinition entity, XafJobScopeInitializer service-account auth, JobSyncService startup reconciliation |
| xaf-search-panels | Configurable advanced-search popups with generated [DomainComponent] DTOs — and why runtime Roslyn compilation is incompatible with AddSecuredEFCore |
| xaf-conditional-appearance | Data-driven appearance rules from the database via AppearanceController.CollectAppearanceRules + IAppearanceRuleProperties adapter, with immediate-effect cache invalidation |
| xaf-navigation-hub | Card-based DashboardView launchpad as startup view: IModelNavigationHub, permission-filtered tiles via ShowNavigationItemController, per-user pinned favorites |
| xaf-environment-auth | SSO vs password authentication switched by ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT (not #if DEBUG), with the HangfireJob service-account carve-out |
| xaf-playwright-testing | E2E testing XAF Blazor with Playwright + NUnit: AuthenticatedTestBase, multi-fallback selectors, screenshot-on-failure, NetworkIdle timing |
| xaf-easytest-authoring | EasyTest functional tests driving real WinForms + Blazor UI from one test body: derive captions/guards from entities & ViewControllers, semantic API cheat-sheet, EasyTest project wiring, and the locale/nested-grid/Blazor-driver gotchas |
These skills ship as a Claude Code plugin (xaf-tools) via this repo's built-in marketplace. Install once per machine:
/plugin marketplace add MBrekhof/xafskills
/plugin install xaf-tools@xafskills
That's it. All 12 skills install together and trigger automatically when Claude Code works on matching tasks. To keep machines in sync, enable auto-update for the marketplace (autoUpdate: true in your ~/.claude/settings.json under extraKnownMarketplaces) — the plugin tracks the latest commit, so a git push here propagates to every machine on its next session.
Update manually at any time with:
/plugin marketplace update xafskills
Prefer to copy individual skills? They live under skills/:
cp -r skills/xaf-efcore-entities ~/.claude/skills/ # global (all projects)
cp -r skills/xaf-efcore-entities /path/to/project/.claude/skills/ # per-project- DevExpress XAF v25.2+ with EF Core
- .NET 8.0 or .NET 9.0
Mined from real production projects covering: dynamic assembly loading, runtime entity creation, Hangfire integration, Elsa workflows, PostgreSQL partitioning, role management, navigation hubs, AI chat integration, report parameter generation, and more.
MIT