Platform Evolution
Assessment run-2026-07-27-1 · 213 of 213 repos assessed
Repos / phenix-user-api

phenix-user-api

.NET 8 API exposing Phenix user data (user summaries and details) read from the shared UserAccount/Phenix SQL databases via stored procedures.

79 · greenlowloosely attachedOn-premZDD: ready with guardrailsapi

Health score

79

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.


Runtime currency / 25
25
Runs on supported modern .NET
Legacy transport / 15
15
No legacy WCF or SOAP surface
Test posture / 15
8
Some tests, coverage is thin
Security hygiene / 15
15
No credentials found in source
Dangerous coupling / 15
1
shares a core database (sqlserver:Phenix); 18 dependents without good tests
Activity / 10
10
Actively maintained
Deployment hygiene / 5
5
CI in place
Health over time
2026-07-24 (run-2026-07-24-1): 792026-07-27 (run-2026-07-27-1): 79
No change since 2026-07-24 (79 to 79).

Facts

Languagescsharp
FrameworksASP.NET Core 8
Runtimes.NET 8, .NET Standard 2.0
Tests / CIsome / CI in place
Last commit2026-07-21
OwnerOwner unknown (mapping to be curated)
DomainIdentity and access (system generated; curate in repo-owners.json to override)
Product areaPhenix
HostedOn-prem Deployed to our own machines
  • Release "\flights-stream\phenix-user-api": Staging: deployment-group phase (agents on our own machines)
  • Release "\flights-stream\phenix-user-api": Production: deployment-group phase (agents on our own machines)
  • Release "\flights-stream\phenix-user-api": Training: deployment-group phase (agents on our own machines)
  • Release "\flights-stream\phenix-user-api": DR: deployment-group phase (agents on our own machines)
  • Release "\flights-stream\phenix-user-api": QA: deployment-group phase (agents on our own machines)
Releases1 release pipeline(s): \flights-stream\phenix-user-api
Integrationrest
SourceOpen in Azure DevOps

Risk flags

Each flag links to its glossary definition.

Dependencies in context

Laying out the graph…
greenamberreddata store (square, dashed link)Node size follows fan-in. Click any node to open it.

Entanglement

loosely attached Bound into the core by 1 mechanism(s).

Detaches when the shared database group it belongs to gains an owned API or completes schema separation (sqlserver:Phenix).

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 guardrails

Close: 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. Shares sqlserver:Phenix: expand and contract is mandatory for any schema change. Test coverage is thin; ZDD shifts the safety net onto automation.

Blockers
Dependencies and gotchas
  • 18 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
  • Shares sqlserver:Phenix with 21 system(s): destructive schema change is prohibited in a single release; expand and contract only
Steps
  1. Adopt the four-stage discipline from the ZDD engineering standard: pre-deployment compatibility, deployment, feature activation behind a flag, post-release cleanup.
  2. Raise automated test coverage first: ZDD trades the end-of-sprint manual gate for continuous automated confidence, so the tests are the entry ticket.
  3. 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.
  4. Audit serialized data: anything in Redis, queues or shared caches must deserialize cleanly across adjacent versions.
  5. Wrap behaviour changes in feature flags so code deploys dark and release becomes a business decision, not a deployment event.
  6. 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).
  7. 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

Blocked by a shared core database

sqlserver:UserAccount, sqlserver:Phenix are shared, so this system cannot change engine on its own: every sharer moves in convoy. The stage 4 work (named owner, declarative schema, owned API) has to land first; after that, the steps below apply to whatever slice this system ends up owning.

Blockers
Steps
  1. Inventory the schema and query surface of sqlserver:UserAccount, sqlserver:Phenix: tables, stored procedures, triggers, cross-database joins and anything else engine-specific.
  2. Confirm the target: PostgreSQL (relational model; keep transactions and joins, swap the engine).
  3. Data access is not through an ORM, so port the SQL by hand: translate T-SQL constructs, replace stored procedures with application code or target-native equivalents, and add integration tests around the queries that matter first.
  4. Stand up the target alongside SQL Server, backfill with an ETL pass (pgloader or an export/import job), then dual-write or replicate until parity is proven.
  5. Move reads to the target, watch correctness and latency, then cut writes over and keep SQL Server read-only until confidence is earned.
  6. Decommission the SQL Server database and remove the connection strings and firewall paths that pointed at it.

Containerisation

Ready to containerise

Modern runtime, no hosted legacy transport: this service can follow the estate's proven container path (Dockerfile, shared pipeline template, ECS via Terraform).

Steps
  1. Add a Dockerfile and make the app read all configuration from environment variables and the secrets manager, never from machine-local files.
  2. Log to stdout and expose a health check endpoint so ECS can supervise it.
  3. 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.
  4. 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

Raise the test floor on phenix-user-api

18 systems depend on it and test coverage is thin. Chokepoints carry good tests before they are changed.

Impact: De-risks change for 18 dependent systems

proposed

Assessment notes

phenix-user-api

Purpose

A small read API for Phenix user data: a single UserController returning user summaries and user details, consumed by Phenix front ends (e.g. api/phenixuser calls from the phenix-ui monorepo). Also publishes TC.Phenix.User.API.Contract and TC.Phenix.User.API.Client NuGet packages (multi-targeting netstandard2.0/net472) so legacy .NET Framework consumers can call it.

Tech stack

C# ASP.NET Core on .NET 8 with Asp.Versioning API versioning, Swashbuckle Swagger with example filters, TC.ConnectionBroker 1.24 (Api + Sql), TC.Exceptions middleware and TC.Diagnostics health checks. Data access is raw System.Data.SqlClient with stored procedures.

Deployment

Included as prod_application with 1 release: \flights-stream\phenix-user-api from the phenix-user-api build pipeline. YAML CI (azure-pipelines.yml) with version.json versioning. Per-environment appsettings (Live, preproduction, training); New Relic app name configured in Live settings.

Dependencies

Internal packages: TC.ConnectionBroker.* (tc-connectionbroker), TC.Exceptions.* (tc-exceptions). External: New Relic APM. No outbound service calls — it goes straight to the database.

Data stores

SQL Server via the ConnectionBroker UserAccount connection, with cross-database stored-procedure calls into the shared Phenix database (e.g. Phenix.dbo.PersonCompanyPhenixFeature_SELECT) — so it is coupled to both shared databases without owning either.

Integration points

Inbound REST only (versioned controller, Swagger, health checks). No messaging, no WCF.

Code health

Modern and tidy but thin on tests: one unit test project with a single controller test (~3 test methods) and a SpecFlow-style acceptance project containing only a Ping feature. Recently active (last commit 2026-07-21). README is decent but mostly build instructions.

Modernisation risks

Low as a codebase (.NET 8, YAML CI). Main concerns are coupling to the shared UserAccount and Phenix databases through stored procedures — schema changes there can break it silently given the minimal test coverage — and the net472 client target that exists to serve legacy framework consumers.