Learn Core using Visual Studio Code. It will help you to figure out the low level framework.
I am working on samples for aspnetcore here https://github.com/dodyg/practical-aspnetcore
I am working on samples for aspnetcore here https://github.com/dodyg/practical-aspnetcore
Boilerplate code sucks, but there are ways to minimize it, and when something breaks you can follow the path through your code to see why.. you don't have to try to discern the interaction between the framework code, your code, defaults/convention and values you do have configured.