Pagination in EF Core, Continued: Sortable Grids, htmx, and the Indexing Cost - Chris Woody Woodruff

A follow-up to a keyset pagination post, addressing reader pushback about sortable grids. Covers keyset pagination with fixed and dynamic sort columns in EF Core, including C# cursor implementations with composite indexes. Honestly quantifies the indexing cost: each sortable column requires a composite index, and four indexes on a 10M-row table can consume ~1 GB of storage with meaningful write amplification. Includes a working Razor Pages + htmx infinite-scroll demo using cursor-based fragment loading. Concludes with a clear decision rule: use keyset only when the table is large AND write-heavy AND user-facing; otherwise offset is fine.