AI Foundry Local and integration / support for .NET Aspire in WSL2 / Linux

[MedAnd]

AI Foundry Local and integration / support for .NET Aspire running in WSL2 / Linux

With all the positive news and adoption surrounding .NET Aspire Preview support for Foundry Local for development, there is an opportunity to build out & support the WSL2 / Linux Developer experience.

The current implementation of Foundry Local in .NET Aspire appears to assume that .NET Aspire is running on the same host as the Foundry Local service. This creates friction for development workflows where .NET Aspire is run from WSL2 or Linux, but Foundry Local is only supported on Windows or macOS currently.

Describe the solution you'd like

💡 Feature Request

Please align your design and roadmap with that of .NET Aspire Foundry Local implementation, to address support and documentation for the following:

1. Remote Foundry Local configuration:

   • Allow .NET Aspire to connect to a Foundry Local instance running on a different host (e.g., Windows host from WSL2).
   • Enable configuration of the Foundry Local endpoint via .WithEndpoint() or similar methods.

2. Enhance RunAsFoundryLocal():

   • Add an overload or configuration option to specify the location of the Foundry Local service.
   • Support environment variables or distributed app settings to override the default behavior.
   • Add support for Foundry Local service lifecycle support (stop, start, status) etc.
   • Add support for Foundry Local service Open Telemetry, logs, traces and metrics where applicable in .NET Aspire Dashboard

Additional context

🔍 Current Limitation in .NET Aspire Foundry Local Support

var foundry = builder.AddAzureAIFoundry("foundry")
                     .RunAsFoundryLocal();

[natke]

Thanks for the feature request @MedAnd! I am moving it into our Discussions area, where the other feature requests are. Our o/s priorities are Windows, Android, and Mac currently, as those represent the greatest user application base. We will update the request when Linux / WSL gets prioritized

[MedAnd]

Hi @natke - thank you for the reply. Please note this specific request was not about AI Foundry Local running locally on Linux, which I notice has already been raised as a feature request by the community. Many enterprise are using a mix of Windows, Mac and WSL2 for development so ideally Microsoft meets developers where they are.

I was hoping you would be able to improve the developer experience, for example when AI Foundry is installed on the Windows Host, but being called from WSL2 / Linux or a container running in Docker on WSL2. This is exactly the scenario for .NET Aspire which I have provided a link to above.

The .NET Aspire support for AI Foundry Local is broken in the example above, when a developer runs .Net Aspire from WSL2 but the AI Foundry is installed on the Windows Host.

[MedAnd]

Hi @natke - any update on this feature?

We are working with MS Global Team on a Banking PoC with AI Foundry. I would love to include Aspire in the AI Foundry development loop if this feature is anywhere close?

[MedAnd]

For anyone interested in this feature, a related discussion in the Aspire Project can be found here: dotnet/aspire#10937