Why should you care?

Every AgentNest module — CRM, hospital, ERP — shares the same bootstrap so interns and production use identical package versions.

See it live — copy this example

Paste into an ASP.NET Core 8+ / AgentNest project, then run with dotnet run (set your API keys in user-secrets).

// Program.cs — AgentNest.Api
builder.Services.AddOpenAIChatClient(
    builder.Configuration["OpenAI:ApiKey"]!,
    modelId: builder.Configuration["OpenAI:Model"] ?? "gpt-4o-mini");

var app = builder.Build();
app.MapGet("/health/ai", () => Results.Ok(new { status = "ready", stack = "extensions.ai" }));
app.Run();

What happened?

• AddOpenAIChatClient registers IChatClient from configuration.
• A health route proves the host starts before you wire agents or Semantic Kernel.

Practice next

1. dotnet new webapi -n AgentNest.Api and dotnet user-secrets init.
2. dotnet add package Microsoft.Extensions.AI.OpenAI.
3. Set OpenAI:ApiKey and OpenAI:Model in user secrets.
4. Switch to AzureOpenAIChatClient when AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT is set.
5. Add readiness check that pings the model with a 1-token prompt.

Remember

Bootstrap AgentNest with IChatClient via Microsoft.Extensions.AI. Keep secrets in user secrets or Azure Key Vault. Verify health before building agents.

Greenfield AgentNest API

A new squad clones the template repo and needs AI working on day one.

Outcome: Shared Program.cs setup lets CRM and hospital teams ship features the same week.