ASP.NET MVC 5 (.NET Framework) — Folder Structure, Request Life Cycle and Features Cheat Sheet

ASP.NET MVC 5 (.NET Framework) — Folder Structure, Request Life Cycle and Features

The MVC pattern, the classic MVC 5 project and folder structure (App_Start, Controllers, Models, Views, Areas, Global.asax, Views/web.config), the full request life cycle from UrlRoutingModule to MvcHandler, controller factory, action invoker, filters, model binding, action results and the Razor view engine, routing (convention and attribute), controllers and action results, Razor views, HTML helpers, partial views and child actions, model binding and validation, filters (authorization, action, result, exception), ViewBag/ViewData/TempData, bundling, dependency injection with Unity/Autofac, OWIN and ASP.NET Identity, Web API 2 side by side, error handling and migrating MVC 5 to ASP.NET Core.

Request life cycle

UrlRoutingModule → MvcRouteHandler → MvcHandler → ControllerFactory → ActionInvoker → authN/authZ filters → model binding → action filters → action → result filters → ActionResult.ExecuteResult → view engine → response.

Folders

App_Start (Route/Filter/Bundle/Identity config) · Controllers · Models · Views (+Shared, _ViewStart, web.config) · Areas · Content · Scripts · Global.asax · Web.config.

Data to views

Strongly typed model > ViewData/ViewBag (this request) · TempData (next request) · Session (user).

Filters

Authentication → Authorization → Action → Result · Exception · global/controller/action scope.

MVC 5 → Core

Global.asax → Program.cs · modules → middleware · child actions → view components · HTML helpers → tag helpers · DependencyResolver → built-in DI · separate Web API → unified controllers.