Ajax with ViewComponent
Your solution is correct. From the docs:
[ViewComponents are] not reachable directly as an HTTP endpoint, they're invoked from your code (usually in a view). A view component never handles a request.
While view components don't define endpoints like controllers, you can easily implement a controller action that returns the content of a ViewComponentResult.
So as you suggested, a lightweight controller can act as an AJAX proxy to our ViewComponent.
public class MyViewComponentController : Controller { [HttpGet] public IActionResult Get(int id) { return ViewComponent("MyViewComponent", new { id }); }}