What is IAsyncDisposable, and when would you use it?

Async disposal with IAsyncDisposable

Explains when cleanup needs asynchronous I/O, how await using guarantees disposal, and how ownership, exceptions, DI lifetimes, and shutdown affect the design.

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TL;DR

IAsyncDisposable represents deterministic cleanup that may need asynchronous work. Its DisposeAsync method returns a ValueTask, and await using awaits it even when the body exits through an exception. I use it when releasing an owned resource requires I/O, such as flushing an asynchronous stream or closing a protocol session. I do not add it to ordinary memory-only objects, and I do not expect the garbage collector to call it for me.

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Async cleanup, resource lifetime, await using, streams, network resources, and safe disposal boundaries.

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Garbage collection reclaims managed memory but does not call asynchronous cleanup on demand. A resource that must flush, settle, or close through async I/O needs an owner that awaits that work on every exit path.
IAsyncDisposable represents deterministic cleanup that may need asynchronous work. Its DisposeAsync method returns a ValueTask, and await using awaits it even when the body exits through an exception. I use it when releasing an owned resource requires I/O, such as flushing an asynchronous stream or closing a protocol session. I do not add it to ordinary memory-only objects, and I do not expect the garbage collector to call it for me.
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Implementing async disposal when cleanup performs no asynchronous work.
Creating an async-disposable object manually without await using.
Blocking on DisposeAsync with .Result during shutdown.

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