I am making a umbraco application/section in my own project. My project has it's own api controllers and model (for storing in database).

But sometimes I want to send out a "view model" instead of my db model from my api controllers. And then I want automapper.

So I did this piece of code to run automapper Initialize once for the dll when it loads.

[assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(UmbracoEventPlanner.Startup), "Start")]
namespace UmbracoEventPlanner
{
    public class Startup
    {
        // Automatically will work on startup
        public static void Start()
        {
            Mapper.Initialize(cfg =>
            {
                cfg.AddProfile(new EventLocationProfile());


            });
        }
    }

    public class EventLocationProfile : Profile
    {
        protected override void Configure()
        {
            Mapper.CreateMap<EventLocation, EventLocationEditModel>()
                .ForMember(dest => dest.LocationTagIds, opt => opt.Ignore());

        }
    }
}

I have debugged the code above and it does run like it should and after the Mapper.CreateMap has run I try this in my debugger.

Mapper.Map<EventLocation, EventLocationEditModel>(new EventLocation(){Name="my test name"})

And it works.... But later on when I run the exact same line from my API controller i get that the Mapping does not exist. At this point I can call the Mapper.CreateMap and it works but I don't want to call that from every call to my API controller.

After googling my best bet is that it's because umbraco runs Mapper.Initialize after I do and then overwrites my mappings.

So how can i avoid that?

As a final note, I want my project (own dll) to be independent with it's automapper. I do not want to have to add mappings in my umbraco web project. As I want to be able to package this up and give to people.