audit-trail

To automatically populate audit fields in EF Core, you can implement an IAuditable interface on your entities and use a SaveChangesInterceptor. This interceptor hooks into DbContext saves to inject timestamps and user identifiers for CreatedAt and UpdatedAt without manual code in services.

Implementing soft delete with EF Core involves using an ISoftDeletable pattern for your entities and applying global query filters in your DbContext. This approach automatically converts hard deletes into soft deletes, hiding removed records from query results by default.

Setting up a SaveChangesInterceptor for CreatedBy and UpdatedBy requires wiring the interceptor into your DbContext dependency injection registration. During entity Added and Modified states, it automatically injects the current user identifiers and timestamps into the auditable fields.

You do not need to manually set CreatedAt and UpdatedAt in domain services if you use a centralized EF Core SaveChangesInterceptor. It automatically handles the population of these audit metadata fields during entity saves, ensuring consistent tracking.

You can add automatic auditing to an existing .NET project by using simple grep patterns to detect entity classes and applying migration steps. You simply add the IAuditable interface to your domain objects and register the AuditableEntityInterceptor.

If your EF Core soft delete query filters are not applying, ensure your entities implement the ISoftDeletable pattern and your DbContext has global query filters correctly configured. The SaveChangesInterceptor must also be properly wired to convert hard deletes into soft deletes.