Reloading configuration in .NET core

Being able to reload configuration on change is typically a key requirement. ASP.NET core configuration infrastructure provides a reloadOnChange property that you can set:

var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
    .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
    .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true)
    .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true)
    .AddEnvironmentVariables();
Configuration = builder.Build();

However, your application still has to handle the change. In asp.net core, this is via a IChangeToken and the Configuration class provides a GetReloadToken().RegisterChangeCallback - the only trouble is that this is fired only once since the change token can change.

The easy way around this is to use the ChangeToken utility - like so:

var valuesConfig = new ValuesConfig();
Configuration.GetSection("ValuesConfig").Bind(valuesConfig);
services.AddSingleton(valuesConfig);
Action onChange = () =>
{
    Configuration.GetSection("ValuesConfig").Bind(valuesConfig);
    Console.WriteLine("onChange fired!");
};

ChangeToken.OnChange(() => Configuration.GetReloadToken(), onChange);

What's interesting though that while this works, the on change handler ends up getting called twice for each change!