mapping-strategies

What problem does it solve?

Mapping between data transfer objects and domain models often becomes brittle, opaque, and hard to debug when driven by convention-based libraries or runtime reflection. This Skill provides clear principles and patterns that make property mappings explicit, debuggable, and resilient to refactors so renames and logic changes fail at compile time rather than at runtime.

Core Features & Use Cases

• Manual mapping with extension methods: Promote explicit property assignments that are easy to read, refactor, and set breakpoints on.
• LINQ projections for EF Core: Push transformations into SQL queries to avoid over-fetching and N+1 issues while preserving compile-time safety.
• Static factory methods and codegen options: Use DTO-owned constructors or Mapster code generation for record-style DTOs and large mechanical mappings.
• Migration guidance from AutoMapper: Incrementally replace runtime reflection profiles with explicit mappings to eliminate hidden runtime failures.
• Use case: Implement API response shaping and persistence DTO conversions for microservices where debuggability and compile-time correctness matter.

Quick Start

Convert your domain entity to a DTO using an explicit extension method that assigns each property and performs any necessary aggregation or formatting.