ServiceBusExplorer

Interactive console tool for exploring and smoking an Azure Service Bus namespace — especially the local emulator.

Browse topics and subscriptions, inspect message counts, send JSON messages, and pull the top N messages from a subscription.

Requirements

• .NET 9 SDK
• Azure Service Bus Emulator running locally (or point the connection strings in ServiceBusExplorer/appsettings.json at a real namespace)

Quick start

dotnet run --project ServiceBusExplorer

Or open ServiceBusExplorer.sln in Visual Studio and run the ServiceBusExplorer project.

What you can do

Topics
  └─ pick a topic
       └─ Subscriptions
            └─ pick a subscription
                 ├─ Message counts   (Active / Dead-letter / Transfer)
                 ├─ Send message     (paste your own JSON)
                 └─ Receive top X    (peek-lock receive + complete)

Navigation uses numbered menus. Enter 0 to go back or quit.

Send message

1. Choose Send message
2. Paste a JSON body
3. Press Enter on an empty line to finish

Example:

{
  "Id": "user-conn-001",
  "AccountNumber": "pb12345",
  "ConnectionId": "abc123-signalr-connection-id",
  "ConnectionType": 1
}

Messages are sent with ContentType = application/json. Invalid JSON is rejected before send.

Receive top X

Prompts for how many messages to receive, then:

• Receives up to that many from the selected subscription
• Prints MessageId, ContentType, and body
• Completes each message (removes it from the subscription)

If fewer than X messages are available, it receives what it can and stops.

Configuration

Connection strings are in ServiceBusExplorer/appsettings.json. The file is copied next to the executable on build/publish, so you can change it without rebuilding.

{
  "AdminConnectionString": "Endpoint=sb://localhost:5300;SharedAccessKeyName=RootManageSharedAccessKey;SharedAccessKey=SAS_KEY_VALUE;UseDevelopmentEmulator=true;",
  "DataConnectionString": "Endpoint=sb://localhost;SharedAccessKeyName=RootManageSharedAccessKey;SharedAccessKey=SAS_KEY_VALUE;UseDevelopmentEmulator=true;"
}

Setting	Default endpoint	Purpose
AdminConnectionString	sb://localhost:5300	List topics/subscriptions, message counts
DataConnectionString	sb://localhost	Send and receive messages

Where to edit

• While developing: ServiceBusExplorer/appsettings.json (copied on the next run if newer)
• Without rebuild: edit appsettings.json beside the built exe, e.g.
  ServiceBusExplorer/bin/Debug/net9.0/appsettings.json
  or next to a published binary

On startup the app prints the config path it loaded.

Project layout

ServiceBusExplorer.sln
└── ServiceBusExplorer/
    ├── ServiceBusExplorer.csproj
    ├── Program.cs
    └── appsettings.json

Depends on Azure.Messaging.ServiceBus only.

Notes

• Subscription filters still apply. If a subscription filters on ContentType = 'application/json', the send path will match. Other filters may drop messages so they never appear on the subscription.
• Counts come from the administration API and can lag slightly on the emulator.
• Receive uses peek-lock and completes messages; they will not remain on the subscription after a successful receive.