EFCore.Kusto 0.3.3

dotnet add package EFCore.Kusto --version 0.3.3
                    
NuGet\Install-Package EFCore.Kusto -Version 0.3.3
                    
This command is intended to be used within the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio, as it uses the NuGet module's version of Install-Package.
<PackageReference Include="EFCore.Kusto" Version="0.3.3" />
                    
For projects that support PackageReference, copy this XML node into the project file to reference the package.
<PackageVersion Include="EFCore.Kusto" Version="0.3.3" />
                    
Directory.Packages.props
<PackageReference Include="EFCore.Kusto" />
                    
Project file
For projects that support Central Package Management (CPM), copy this XML node into the solution Directory.Packages.props file to version the package.
paket add EFCore.Kusto --version 0.3.3
                    
#r "nuget: EFCore.Kusto, 0.3.3"
                    
#r directive can be used in F# Interactive and Polyglot Notebooks. Copy this into the interactive tool or source code of the script to reference the package.
#:package EFCore.Kusto@0.3.3
                    
#:package directive can be used in C# file-based apps starting in .NET 10 preview 4. Copy this into a .cs file before any lines of code to reference the package.
#addin nuget:?package=EFCore.Kusto&version=0.3.3
                    
Install as a Cake Addin
#tool nuget:?package=EFCore.Kusto&version=0.3.3
                    
Install as a Cake Tool

EFCore.Kusto

NuGet Version

A lightweight, extensible Entity Framework Core provider for translating LINQ queries into Kusto Query Language (KQL) AKA Azure Data Explorer (ADX).

While I primarily built this to integrate with ASP.NET Core OData (v8+) for analytical workloads, it can be used standalone for any LINQ-to-KQL translation needs.


Table of Contents


1. Installation

Install the package from NuGet:

dotnet add package EFCore.Kusto

Or via csproj:

<ProjectReference Include="src/EFCore.Kusto/EFCore.Kusto.csproj" />

2. Getting Started

  1. Register your DbContext with the Kusto provider and pick an authentication option:

    builder.Services.AddDbContext<PropertyContext>((sp, options) =>
    {
        options.UseKusto(
            clusterUrl: "https://<cluster>.kusto.windows.net",
            database: "<database>",
            kusto => kusto.UseManagedIdentity());
    });
    
    • Use UseManagedIdentity(clientId) for a user-assigned identity, or omit the client id for system-assigned identities.
    • Use UseApplicationAuthentication(tenantId, clientId, clientSecret) for app registrations.
    • Use UseTokenCredential(credential) to supply any TokenCredential (e.g., one registered via AddKustoManagedIdentityCredential or AddKustoApplicationRegistration).
    • If no authentication option is configured, the provider falls back to DefaultAzureCredential when executing queries.
  2. Optional: register shared credentials so they can be reused when building DbContext options:

    builder.Services.AddKustoManagedIdentityCredential(clientId: "<client-id>");
    // or
    builder.Services.AddKustoApplicationRegistration(
        tenantId: "<tenant-id>",
        clientId: "<client-id>",
        clientSecret: "<client-secret>");
    

    These helpers register a singleton TokenCredential you can inject when calling UseTokenCredential inside AddDbContext.


3. Project Goals

  • Provide a reliable LINQ-to-KQL translation layer.
  • Integrate cleanly with ASP.NET Core OData (v8+).
  • Offer predictable, debuggable SQL generation.
  • Ensure correctness and performance for high‑volume analytical datasets.
  • Remain lightweight with minimal runtime overhead.

4. Read Capabilities

Query Translation

This provider currently supports:

  • Where filters
  • Select projections
  • Ordering (OrderBy, ThenBy)
  • Pagination (Skip, Take)
  • GroupBy with aggregates (Sum, Min, Max, Average, Count, LongCount, Count(predicate) → countif, Distinct().Count() → dcount)
  • Conditional expressions (?:) → iif / case
  • Basic join translation used by OData $expand
  • Counts as used by OData $count

OData Compatibility

EFCore.Kusto works well with:

  • $filter
  • $select
  • $orderby
  • $count
  • $skip, $top
  • $expand (entity relationships)

If specific OData query shapes cause issues, they can be addressed case‑by‑case. Community reports are welcome.


5. Write Capabilities

EFCore.Kusto supports data modification using Kusto-native control commands.

Supported Operations

  • Insert (Add, AddRange) via .ingest
  • Update (Update) via .update table
  • Delete (Remove, RemoveRange) via .delete table

Batching Semantics

  • Commands are batched per entity type and target table
  • Read and write operations are never mixed in the same batch
  • Each batch is executed as a single Kusto command

Note: Transactional guarantees and concurrency semantics are constrained by Kusto’s execution model.


6. Migrations (Experimental)

EF Core migrations are supported, translating schema operations into KQL control commands (.create-merge table, .alter-merge table, .drop, .rename, etc.). Standard tooling works: dotnet ef migrations add, dotnet ef database update, dotnet ef migrations script. Applied migrations are tracked in an EFMigrationsHistory table.

Migrations run against the database selected by UseKusto(cluster, database) — Kusto's database is the schema equivalent and is fixed at the connection, so EF schema operations are no-ops.

This feature is experimental. Limitations:

  • Indexes, foreign keys, primary keys, unique/check constraints, and sequences are no-ops (Kusto has none).
  • Migrations are non-transactional — no rollback; execution stops at the first failing command.
  • .alter column type= clears existing data in that column (Kusto semantics).

7. Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a detailed version history.


8. Contributing

Contributions are welcome.
If you encounter a translation issue, please include:

  1. The LINQ expression (or OData URL if applicable).
  2. The expected KQL.
  3. The generated KQL (if available).

This helps isolate translation gaps quickly.


9. License

MIT License – simple, permissive, widely accepted.

EFCore.Kusto is free for commercial and open‑source use.


10. Disclaimer

While this provider is functional and under active development, it is not yet battle-tested in production environments.

If you encounter unexpected behavior, open an issue — the goal is full reliability for production workloads.

Product Compatible and additional computed target framework versions.
.NET net8.0 is compatible.  net8.0-android was computed.  net8.0-browser was computed.  net8.0-ios was computed.  net8.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net8.0-macos was computed.  net8.0-tvos was computed.  net8.0-windows was computed.  net9.0 is compatible.  net9.0-android was computed.  net9.0-browser was computed.  net9.0-ios was computed.  net9.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net9.0-macos was computed.  net9.0-tvos was computed.  net9.0-windows was computed.  net10.0 is compatible.  net10.0-android was computed.  net10.0-browser was computed.  net10.0-ios was computed.  net10.0-maccatalyst was computed.  net10.0-macos was computed.  net10.0-tvos was computed.  net10.0-windows was computed. 
Compatible target framework(s)
Included target framework(s) (in package)
Learn more about Target Frameworks and .NET Standard.

NuGet packages

This package is not used by any NuGet packages.

GitHub repositories

This package is not used by any popular GitHub repositories.

Version Downloads Last Updated
0.3.3 40 10/28/2026
0.3.2 72 10/27/2026
0.3.1 112 10/20/2026
0.3.0 114 10/2/2026
0.2.11 139 8/29/2026
0.2.10 181 8/27/2026
0.2.9 124 8/21/2026
0.2.8 118 8/21/2026
0.2.7 132 8/13/2026
0.2.6 134 8/10/2026
0.2.5 275 6/17/2026
0.2.4 161 6/1/2026
0.2.3 250 5/25/2026
0.2.2 152 5/8/2026
0.2.1 312 3/11/2026
0.2.0 189 1/30/2026
0.1.9 151 1/28/2026
0.1.8 163 1/23/2026
0.1.7 161 1/18/2026
0.1.6 168 1/9/2026
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Version 0.3.3:
           - Fixed batched updates failing when a column was set to null: the changes bag contained typed nulls such as guid(null), datetime(null) or bool(null), which Kusto's dynamic literals don't accept. Those are now sent as null; long(null), real(null) and dynamic(null) are kept.

           Version 0.3.2:
           - Fixed batched updates failing when an int or decimal column changed: the changes bag contained int(...) and decimal(...) literals, which Kusto's dynamic literals don't accept. Those values are now sent as bare numbers.
           - Fixed reading an int property throwing when Kusto returned the column as another numeric type; the value is now converted to int.

           Version 0.3.1:
           - Fixed OData $apply aggregates generating invalid KQL: aggregate, groupby + aggregate, several aggregates together and $count failed with "Duplicate column name(s): Name, Value" or "Syntax error: Expected: ,". Constants no longer appear in the summarize aggregate list and every result column now gets a unique name.
           - Fixed type conversions inside queries being emitted as SQL CAST(x AS type), which Kusto rejects. They now emit todecimal, toreal, tolong, toint, tostring, tobool, todatetime and toguid, and a conversion between identical types is dropped. A DateOnly conversion maps to datetime.
           - Fixed GroupBy(...).OrderBy(g => g.Count()) (and LongCount()) placed before Select emitting "order by count()", which is invalid KQL, instead of the aggregate's column name.
           - Fixed decimal results wider than .NET's decimal (for example avg over a decimal column, up to 34 digits) throwing "Conversion overflows."; they are now rounded to 28 digits.
           - Batched updates now send each changed value as a typed KQL literal (datetime(...), decimal(...), ...) instead of a JSON-serialized value, so dates and decimals keep their Kusto type.

           Version 0.3.0:
           - BREAKING: Guid properties now map to Kusto's native guid type instead of string, and new migrations create guid columns. Tables created by earlier versions with a string column for a Guid property must be altered or recreated: reading such a column into a Guid property fails, because the reader cannot cast a string column to Guid.
           - Added translation of date/time components (Year, Month, Day, DayOfYear, Hour, Minute, Second, Millisecond, Date, DayOfWeek) on DateTime, DateOnly and DateTimeOffset. Predicates using them previously threw NotSupportedException, notably OData $filter date comparisons.
           - Batched updates are now sent as an inline datatable joined on the key, instead of one union leg per row: a 1000-row batch against a 443-column table went from ~35 s and ~30 CPU-seconds to ~2 s and ~1 CPU-second. Each row carries only the columns it changed, so rows changing different columns no longer overwrite each other.
           - Batched updates are split into .update commands that each stay within a maximum length (UseMaxUpdateCommandLength, default 2,095,674), instead of one command that Kusto rejected with SYN0009 past 2,097,152 characters. The commands are not transactional: if one fails, the ones before it stay applied.
           - Fixed Any(predicate)/All(predicate) over a shadow array-column property throwing NotSupportedException for predicates mixing == and != leaves, e.g. Any(a => a == x || a != y) and All(a => a != x && a == y).
           - Fixed byte[] values being written into KQL literals as a JSON array instead of base64.
           - net8.0: pinned the transitive Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory (8.0.1) and Microsoft.Bcl.Memory (9.0.14) to versions without known high-severity advisories.

           Version 0.2.11:
           - Fixed Any(predicate)/All(predicate) over a shadow array-column property silently discarding the predicate for anything beyond a single equality/inequality against one constant (it collapsed to "array is non-empty" regardless of the predicate). Compound predicates (Any(a => a == x || a == y), All(a => a != x && a != y)) now translate correctly; unsupported shapes now throw instead of silently returning the wrong answer.
           - Fixed Queryable.Contains over the same shadow array-column property mis-typing a parameterized non-string value (e.g. a captured int), binding it with DbType = String instead of its correct type.

           Version 0.2.10:
           - Fixed string.Contains/StartsWith/EndsWith (the plain single-string-argument overloads) throwing NotSupportedException; they now translate to Kusto's native contains_cs/startswith_cs/endswith_cs operators. This notably broke OData's $filter=contains(...)/startswith(...)/endswith(...) query functions.

           Version 0.2.9:
           - Fixed batched deletes (e.g. RemoveRange) generating malformed KQL for 2+ rows due to an unbalanced parenthesis in AppendDeleteOperation.

           Version 0.2.8:
           - Added string.IsNullOrEmpty/IsNullOrWhiteSpace translation to isempty()/isempty(trim(...)); previously unsupported and silently missed actual-null rows via EF Core's default expansion.
           - Added opt-in UseIsEmptyForStringIsNull(): when enabled, x.Field == null / != null on a string operand generates isempty()/isnotempty() instead of isnull()/isnotnull(), since a Kusto string column can never hold a database null. Disabled by default.
           - Fixed null literals reached through a constant or CASE branch (e.g. a ternary's null arm) rendering as the invalid bare text "null" instead of a typed null (int(null), datetime(null), guid(null), ...) or, for strings, "".

           Version 0.2.7:
           - Added support for inner and right joins (previously only left join was translated); unrecognized join expression types now throw instead of silently falling back to a left join.
           - Fixed DbType.Decimal being mapped to Kusto's "real" (binary floating-point) type instead of its own "decimal" type, which could silently lose precision on decimal parameters.
           - Control-command routing (.show/.drop/etc. vs. query) is now decided once from the provider's own pristine command text before any DbCommandInterceptor can mutate it, closing a spoofing/tampering gap in the previous execution-time text sniff. Commands created outside the EF Core pipeline (e.g. via DbConnection.CreateCommand() directly) fall back to the original sniffing behavior unchanged.

           Version 0.2.6:
           - Fixed regression with count translation introduced in 0.2.3.
           
           Version 0.2.5:
           - Multi-targeted net8.0, net9.0 and net10.0, building against EF Core 8, 9 and 10 respectively. Adapted to the EF Core 9 migrations API (HistoryRepository database lock, IMigrationCommandExecutor overloads) and the EF Core 10 RelationalCommand logCommandText. Query parameter naming now works across versions (EF Core 10 dropped the "__" prefix).

           Version 0.2.4:
           - Added experimental EF Core migrations support (schema ops -> KQL control commands, EFMigrationsHistory tracking). Non-transactional; alter-column-type clears data; relational-only constructs are no-ops.

           Version 0.2.3:
           - Added GroupBy -> KQL summarize translation (Sum/Min/Max/Avg/Count/LongCount, countif, dcount).
           - Added conditional (?:) translation to iif / case.
           - Fixed parameter substitution to emit typed KQL literals (was using raw ToString).

           Version 0.2.2:
           - Fixed duplicate parameter issue.
           
           Version 0.2.1:
           - Convert from Hex string for byte arrays.
           
           Version 0.2.0:
           - Added support for `Any()` translation.
           
           Version 0.1.9:
           - Added support for OUTER APPLY and CROSS APPLY.
           
           Version 0.1.8:
           - Fixed inequality comparisons on strings.
           
           Version 0.1.7:
           - Fixed `not` operator translation
           - Fixed duplicate column issue in joins
           - Implemented `Contains`
           
           Version 0.1.6:
           - Fixed NULL handling in PATCH requests.
           - Better string escaping in PATCH requests.
           
           Version 0.1.5:
           - Optimized `.update` command to use less nesting and support larger batches.

           Version 0.1.4:
           - Fixed `COUNT(*)` regression resulting from `KustoQuerySqlGenerator.WriteProjection` refactor.

           Version 0.1.3:
           - Added support for `DateOnly` type translation.

           Version 0.1.2:
           - Added write command batching per entity/table.

           Version 0.1.1:
           - Added update support via Kusto `.update table` commands.

           Version 0.1.0:
           - Initial release (read-only query support).