When would you use Task.Run, and when should you rely on async/await directly?

Task.Run vs async/await

Explain when Task.Run is useful, when async/await is enough, and why Task.Run is usually wrong for I/O in ASP.NET Core.

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TL;DR

I use async/await directly for I/O-bound operations that already expose async APIs, like database calls or HTTP requests. I use Task.Run mainly when I need to run CPU-bound work on a thread-pool thread from a context where that makes sense. In ASP.NET Core, wrapping normal I/O in Task.Run is usually a mistake because it consumes extra thread-pool capacity instead of improving scalability.

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Understanding of CPU-bound work, I/O-bound work, thread-pool usage, and ASP.NET Core scalability trade-offs.

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Why this question matters
Task.Run schedules work on the thread pool; async/await composes operations that may already be asynchronous. Confusing the two can hide blocking dependencies, waste worker capacity, and reduce server throughput.
I use async/await directly for I/O-bound operations that already expose async APIs, like database calls or HTTP requests. I use Task.Run mainly when I need to run CPU-bound work on a thread-pool thread from a context where that makes sense. In ASP.NET Core, wrapping normal I/O in Task.Run is usually a mistake because it consumes extra thread-pool capacity instead of improving scalability.
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For example, await httpClient.GetAsync(...) is already asynchronous, so putting it inside Task.Run only wastes a worker thread. On the other hand, if I have a CPU-heavy image resize or report calculation, Task.Run can move that work away from a UI thread, or I might push it to a background worker in a server application. The trade-off is that Task.Run is easy to abuse; it can make latency look better for one request while reducing throughput for the whole system.

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Details

Wrapping every slow method in Task.Run.
Using Task.Run around already-async I/O.
Starting CPU-heavy work inside request handlers without concurrency limits.
Forgetting that Task.Run uses thread-pool threads.
Treating Task.Run as error handling or timeout control.

When would you use Task.Run, and when should you rely on async/await directly?

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