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Document DB 13 - MCP Server, REST API, Field Level Encryption, Transactional Outbox, & More!SHOW ME!!

Network Discovery | Getting Started

Find services on the local network and advertise your own, using mDNS/DNS-SD — the protocol behind Bonjour and Zeroconf. Discover printers, casting targets, IoT devices, and other instances of your own app, then resolve them to a host, port, IP addresses, and TXT metadata. Built on Shiny.Core, so it runs in any Shiny host — MAUI, console, service, or server.
GitHub GitHub stars for shinyorg/shiny
Downloads NuGet downloads for Shiny.Net.Discovery
Frameworks
.NET MAUI
.NET
Operating Systems
Android
iOS
Windows
Linux
macOS

Features

Section titled “Features”
  • Browse — a live IAsyncEnumerable<MdnsBrowseResult> stream of services appearing and disappearing, or a one-shot BrowseOnce scan.
  • Resolve — turn an instance name into a host name, port, IPv4/IPv6 addresses, and TXT records.
  • Publish — advertise your own service with TXT metadata, including conflict-driven renaming.
  • No iOS multicast entitlement — Apple platforms go through Bonjour (NSNetService), not raw multicast sockets.
  • No Android multicast lock — Android goes through NsdManager.
  • Dependency-free managed responder for Windows, Linux, macOS console, and server .NET.
  • AOT & trimmer compatible.

Step 1 — Add the marketplace:

claude plugin marketplace add shinyorg/skills

Step 2 — Install the plugin:

claude plugin install shiny-client@shiny

Step 1 — Add the marketplace:

copilot plugin marketplace add https://github.com/shinyorg/skills

Step 2 — Install the plugin:

copilot plugin install shiny-client@shiny
View shiny-client Plugin

Setup

Section titled “Setup”

Install the package:

Terminal window
dotnet add package Shiny.Net.Discovery

Register the manager:

using Shiny;


builder.Services.AddMdns();

Then inject IMdnsManager wherever you need it.

Find services on the network

Section titled “Find services on the network”
public class PrinterFinder(IMdnsManager mdns)
{
    public async Task<IReadOnlyList<MdnsService>> FindPrinters(CancellationToken ct)
        => await mdns.BrowseOnce("_ipp._tcp", TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5), ct);
}

BrowseOnce collects for a fixed window and returns everything still present when it closes — ideal for a “scan” button. For a list that updates as devices come and go, use the streaming API:

await foreach (var result in mdns.Browse("_ipp._tcp", ct))
{
    if (result.Status == MdnsBrowseStatus.Found)
        this.printers[result.Service.FullName] = result.Service;
    else
        this.printers.Remove(result.Service.FullName);
}

Browse never completes on its own — it runs until the CancellationToken is cancelled.

Use what you found

Section titled “Use what you found”
var service = found.First();


Console.WriteLine(service.InstanceName);          // "Kitchen Printer"
Console.WriteLine(service.HostName);              // "kitchen-printer.local"
Console.WriteLine(service.Port);                  // 631
Console.WriteLine(service.GetTxt("rp"));          // TXT record lookup


if (service.IsResolved)
    await socket.ConnectAsync(service.GetEndPoint()!);
Section titled “Advertise your own service”
await using var publication = await mdns.Publish(
    new MdnsServiceRegistration("Allan's Laptop", "_myapp._tcp", 8080)
    {
        TxtRecords = new Dictionary<string, string> { ["version"] = "2" }
    },
    ct
);


// the responder renames on conflict, so read the live name back
logger.LogInformation("advertising as {Name}", publication.InstanceName);

Publishing only advertises the port — you are still responsible for having a listener bound to it. Disposing the publication sends a goodbye packet and stops advertising.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”