Entity base classes

Most entities in an EF Core application share the same foundational properties: an identifier, a creation timestamp, and a last-updated timestamp. Rather than defining these on every entity, EntityBase gives you a standardized base class that handles this consistently.

Using EntityBase

Inherit from EntityBase to get a Guid identifier and automatic date initialization:

using MADE.Data.EFCore;

public class User : EntityBase
{
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
    public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
}

When you create a new User instance, Id is set to a new Guid, and CreatedDate and UpdatedDate are initialized to DateTime.UtcNow.

Using a custom key type

If your entity needs a different identifier type (e.g., int for auto-increment or string for external IDs), use the generic EntityBase<TKey>:

public class Product : EntityBase<int>
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
}

public class ExternalEvent : EntityBase<string>
{
    public string Source { get; set; }
    public string Payload { get; set; }
}

Entity interfaces

If you can't use inheritance (e.g., your entity already has a base class), implement the interfaces directly:

Interface	Properties
`IDatedEntity`	`CreatedDate`, `UpdatedDate`
`IEntityBase<TKey>`	`Id` (typed), plus `IDatedEntity` properties
`IEntityBase`	Convenience interface using `Guid` as the key type

public class AuditLog : ExistingBaseClass, IEntityBase
{
    public Guid Id { get; set; }
    public DateTime CreatedDate { get; set; }
    public DateTime UpdatedDate { get; set; }
    public string Action { get; set; }
}

Configuring entities in the model builder

The EntityBaseExtensions class provides extensions for configuring entity types in your DbContext:

protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
    // Configures the key and UTC date properties for a Guid-based entity
    modelBuilder.Entity<User>().Configure();

    // For entities with a custom key type
    modelBuilder.Entity<Product>().ConfigureWithKey<Product, int>();
}

The Configure extension sets the entity's Id as the primary key and applies UTC date conversion to CreatedDate and UpdatedDate. You can also use ConfigureDateProperties independently if you only need the date configuration.

Best practices