Strongly-typed URLs and redirects in ASP.NET Core MVC

Introduction

Anyone who has worked with ASP.NET Core MVC has experienced the pain of renaming a controller and suddenly breaking every Url.Action and RedirectToAction call. A single typo in a string can silently generate invalid links. While Rider provides IntelliSense for these strings, we cannot assume every developer uses the same IDE.

To solve this, I created my own source generator called EndpointHelpers. It generates C# 14 extension properties on IUrlHelper using controller names, and then generates extension methods for all actions within each controller.

The article photo was taken by Joey Kyber.

What is EndpointHelpers

EndpointHelpers is a Roslyn source generator that creates strongly typed helpers for generating URLs and redirects. It generates:

• IUrlHelper helpers with methods per action
• LinkGenerator helpers with Get{Action}Path methods, including overloads with HttpContext
• Extensions on IUrlHelper and LinkGenerator to access the generated helpers
• Typed redirect helpers for actions (e.g., RedirectToAction("Index") becomes this.RedirectToIndex())

This NuGet package delivers only the generator and the generated code, with no runtime dependencies.

Before and after

Without the generator:

@Url.Action(action: "Details", controller: "Orders", values: new { orderId = 123, source = "dashboard" })

With the generator:

@Url.Orders.Details(123, "dashboard")

Installation

<ItemGroup>
  <PackageReference Include="EndpointHelpers" Version="1.0.4" />
</ItemGroup>

dotnet add package EndpointHelpers

Quick start

Enable at the assembly level:

using EndpointHelpers;

[assembly: GenerateEndpointHelpers]

Or enable per controller/action:

using EndpointHelpers;

[GenerateEndpointHelpers]
public class OrdersController : Controller
{
public IActionResult Index() => View();

```
public IActionResult Details(int orderId, string? source) => View();
```

}

Typed redirects

public class OrdersController : Controller
{
    public IActionResult Index() => View();

```
[GenerateRedirectToAction]
public IActionResult Details(int orderId, string? source) => View();

public IActionResult Save()
{
    return this.RedirectToDetails(orderId: 123, source: "created");
}
```

}

Scopes and filters

• Assembly: [assembly: GenerateUrlHelper], [assembly: GenerateLinkGenerator], [assembly: GenerateRedirectToAction] or [assembly: GenerateEndpointHelpers]
• Controller: the same attributes on the class
• Action: the same attributes on specific methods

To exclude, use:

• [UrlHelperIgnore]
• [LinkGeneratorIgnore]
• [RedirectToActionIgnore]
• [NonAction]

Conclusion

The main advantage is having strongly typed URLs instead of relying on magic strings. This allows safe refactoring and gives you full IntelliSense support to access all your endpoints directly from your IDE.

The repository is available on GitHub: https://www.github.com/gumbarros/EndpointHelpers. If you find it useful, consider starring the project.