admin-studio-api
ASP.NET Core 8 backend API for Admin Studio that issues Payment Orchestrator (payments router) access tokens via the AWS connection broker, enabling secure refund operations.
Health score
0 to 100 across seven weighted factors; nothing is hidden. Green is 75 and above, amber 50 to 74, red below 50. How scoring works.
Facts
| Languages | csharp |
| Frameworks | ASP.NET Core 8, MediatR, FluentValidation, NSwag/Swashbuckle |
| Runtimes | .NET 8 |
| Tests / CI | some / CI in place |
| Last commit | 2025-07-15 |
| Owner | Owner unknown (mapping to be curated) |
| Domain | Payments and finance (system generated; curate in repo-owners.json to override) |
| Product area | Phenix |
| Hosted | On-prem Deployed to our own machines
|
| Releases | 1 release pipeline(s): \finance\admin-studio\admin-studio-api |
| Integration | rest, jwt |
| Source | Open in Azure DevOps |
Dependencies in context
Entanglement
loose No binding mechanisms apply: this system needs no untangling work.
Depends on / used by
Migration playbooks
Generated from this repo's assessment data: what is feasible, what blocks it, and the steps in order. Ratings: green means actionable now, amber means sequence other work first, red means blocked, grey means not applicable.
ZDD adoption
Ready with guardrailsClose: the deployment path exists, but specific checks are needed first, typically raising tests, auditing serialized data, or respecting a shared schema with expand and contract. Test coverage is thin; ZDD shifts the safety net onto automation.
- 1 system(s) depend on this repo; during a rolling deploy they will talk to old and new versions at once, so responses must stay compatible
- Adopt the four-stage discipline from the ZDD engineering standard: pre-deployment compatibility, deployment, feature activation behind a flag, post-release cleanup.
- Raise automated test coverage first: ZDD trades the end-of-sprint manual gate for continuous automated confidence, so the tests are the entry ticket.
- Make every change dual-version safe: backwards-compatible APIs (new major version for breaking wire changes), expand and contract for any schema change, and consumers tolerant of unknown fields.
- Wrap behaviour changes in feature flags so code deploys dark and release becomes a business decision, not a deployment event.
- Route deployments through the Workflow Engine's automated drain, deploy, health-check, return cycle (the path proven by the first automated production run in mid-2026).
- Verify with area-scoped regression rather than the whole-platform cycle, and watch error rates after rollout with automated rollback on alert.
SQL Server exit
Not applicableNo SQL Server dependency is recorded for this repo. Nothing to migrate.
Containerisation
Ready to containeriseModern runtime, no hosted legacy transport: this service can follow the estate's proven container path (Dockerfile, shared pipeline template, ECS via Terraform).
- Add a Dockerfile and make the app read all configuration from environment variables and the secrets manager, never from machine-local files.
- Log to stdout and expose a health check endpoint so ECS can supervise it.
- Adopt the shared ci.yml pipeline template with the container parameters (awsRegion, containerAfterBuild, ecsTerraformRepo), which is exactly how the estate's existing AWS services deploy.
- Define the service in the Terraform repo, deploy to a non-production environment, then shift traffic and disarm the deployment-group release pipeline.
Recommended actions
No specific actions for this repo. It either needs only normal maintenance, or its work is covered by an estate-level action. See the full programme.
Assessment notes
admin-studio-api
Purpose
A small backend service that sits between the Admin Studio desktop client and the payments platform. Its main endpoint authenticates the calling user and generates a JWT access token for the Payment Orchestrator (payments router) using the AWS connection broker, supporting refund operations initiated from Admin Studio. It also exposes status/health-check endpoints and publishes a generated NSwag client package (AdminStudio.Api.Client).
Tech stack
C# on .NET 8 (ASP.NET Core), SDK-style projects with Directory.Build.props and Nerdbank.GitVersioning. MediatR handler pipeline with FluentValidation, API versioning, Swagger/NSwag client generation, Correlate request correlation, PhenixAuth authentication scheme, and internal packages TC.ConnectionBroker (AWS), TC.Exceptions, TC.Diagnostics.HealthChecks, TC.Payments.JwtTokens.ConnectionBroker.
Deployment
Included as a prod application with 1 release; build pipeline admin-studio-api, release pipeline \finance\admin-studio\admin-studio-api. CI in azure-pipelines.yml uses the shared azure-pipelines-templates dotnet job (SDK 8.0.x), building the API app and publishing the client NuGet package. Hosted under base path /services/adminstudio-api with per-environment appsettings (testqa, datafixqa, liveproviderqa, preproduction, training, live).
Dependencies
Consumes the TC.ConnectionBroker packages built from the tc-connectionbroker repo to obtain JWTs from the AWS connection broker. The Payment Orchestrator / payments router it issues tokens for is not an included repo. Consumed by admin-studio (the desktop client).
Data stores
None; the service is stateless.
Integration points
REST/JSON API secured by PhenixAuth; issues JWTs for the payments router via the AWS connection broker. OpenAPI spec and generated client are part of the build.
Code health
Modern, clean codebase with a single xUnit-style test project covering the token handler — coverage is thin but proportionate to the small surface. CI is in place. Last commit 2025-07-15.
Modernisation risks
Low risk: already on .NET 8 with contemporary patterns. Main considerations are keeping the runtime current and the fact that it exists primarily as a shim for the legacy Admin Studio thick client, so its future is tied to that client's replacement.