How to Manage User Lifecycle with .NET and SCIM

Summary

Managing users across multiple systems can be slow, error-prone, difficult to synchronize, and a security risk, so the tutorial uses SCIM to standardize lifecycle operations. It builds a .NET 8 SCIM server with RESTful CRUD endpoints for the User resource, backed by Entity Framework Core and SQLite, and seeds sample users and emails for testing. Swagger UI is used to inspect and exercise the API, while Okta acts as the SCIM client and identity provider after OAuth-protected endpoints and provisioning are configured. The walkthrough tests importing users, syncing assignments, deprovisioning by setting active to false, reprovisioning by setting it to true, and propagating profile changes; however, the original Okta CLI instructions no longer work exactly as written after the May 2025 plan and tooling changes.

Takeaways

1. 1

   The sample models SCIM users with Entity Framework Core and stores them in SQLite, including a User entity, related Email records, a unique UserName index, and seed data.

2. 2

   Okta provisioning calls the .NET SCIM server to synchronize assigned users, while the server exposes User resource endpoints under the SCIM API.

3. 3

   Unassigning a user sends a PATCH that sets active to false; assigning the user again sends a PATCH that sets active to true, and profile edits are propagated to the server.

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