Repos / provider-activator

provider-activator

WinForms ClickOnce desktop tool for Head Office staff to switch third-party providers on/off in the Phenix database via stored procedures.

53 · amberlowloosely attachedOn-premZDD: not applicableotherdormantsecrets in source

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.

Runtime currency / 25

Runs on supported modern .NET

Legacy transport / 15

No legacy WCF or SOAP surface

Test posture / 15

No tests

Security hygiene / 15

Credentials or keys committed to source

Dangerous coupling / 15

shares a core database (sqlserver:Phenix)

Activity / 10

Dormant: no meaningful change for two years or more while still deployed

Deployment hygiene / 5

CI in place

Health over time

No change since 2026-07-24 (53 to 53).

Facts

Languages	csharp
Frameworks	Windows Forms, ClickOnce
Runtimes	.NET 8 (windows)
Tests / CI	none / CI in place
Last commit	2024-05-13
Owner	Owner unknown (mapping to be curated)
Domain	Selling and quoting (system generated; curate in repo-owners.json to override)
Product area	Phenix
Hosted	On-prem Deployed to our own machines Release "provider-activator": Publish Beta Clickonce: file copy to \\ukmaniis3\Development\ProviderActivatorBeta Release "provider-activator": Publish ClickOnce: file copy to \\ukmaniis3\Development\ProviderActivator
Releases	1 release pipeline(s): provider-activator
Integration	sqlserver
Source	Open in Azure DevOps

Risk flags

thick-client no-tests boilerplate-readme dormant secrets-in-source

Each flag links to its glossary definition.

Dependencies in context

View in full graph

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).

Shares core database sqlserver:Phenix

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

Depends on / used by

Depends on (1)

tc-connectionbroker

Used by (0)

No internal dependents.

Data stores

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

Not applicable

Not a deployed service (libraries, database definitions, desktop apps) or a retirement candidate not worth the investment. Desktop application distributed to user machines; server-side ZDD does not apply.

SQL Server exit

Retire instead

This repo is a retirement or consolidation candidate. Do not invest in a database migration; execute the retirement and the SQL Server dependency disappears with it.

Containerisation

Not appropriate

This is a desktop application distributed to user machines; containers do not apply. Its modernisation path is replacement by a web application, not containerisation.

Recommended actions

Rotate credentialsStage 0: rotate exposed credentials

Rotate the credentials committed to provider-activator

Risk flags indicate credentials or keys in source (secrets-in-source). Rotate now and enable secret scanning in CI; this is independent of all other work.

Impact: Closes a live security exposure at near-zero cost

proposed

RetireStage 1: shrink the estate

Review provider-activator for retirement

Dormant (last commit 2024-05-13) yet still release-linked, and nothing depends on it. Confirm remaining use, then retire and disarm its pipeline.

Impact: Shrinks the estate before the expensive work begins

proposed

Assessment notes

provider-activator

Purpose

A tiny operational Windows Forms tool ("Provider Activator") that lists providers from the Phenix database and toggles them on/off. It calls two stored procedures (ProviderSwitch_SELECT, ProviderSwitch_OnOff) and offers an environment picker driven by TC.ConnectionBroker connection strings, so operators can flip providers per environment.

Tech stack

Single C# project targeting net8.0-windows (WinForms, SDK-style csproj, win-x64), published via ClickOnce with Release and Release-Beta profiles to development.travelcounsellors.com / a \\ukmaniis3 file share. Uses Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection, System.Data.SqlClient and TC.ConnectionBroker 1.12.x for connection-string resolution.

Deployment

Included as prod_application with 1 release; build pipeline provider-activator (YAML build.yml in repo, self-hosted pool with MSBuild/Visual Studio demands) and release pipeline provider-activator. Distribution is ClickOnce install pages rather than a server deployment; deployment-scripts is pulled in as a git submodule.

Dependencies

Internal: TC.ConnectionBroker.Sql / .Extensions.DependencyInjection (tc-connectionbroker) and the shared deployment-scripts submodule. No other estate packages and no external services.

Data stores

SQL Server — the shared Phenix database, accessed directly with stored procedures through a ConnectionBroker-resolved connection string.

Integration points

Direct SQL only; no REST, messaging or WCF. It is a thick client mutating shared Phenix state from operator desktops.

Code health

No test project at all and the README is untouched Azure DevOps boilerplate. Last commit 2024-05-13, so dormant for over two years. A ClickOnce signing certificate (ClickOnce.pfx) is committed to source alongside its thumbprint in the csproj.

Modernisation risks

The runtime is modern (.NET 8) so the stack itself is fine, but the pattern is not: a ClickOnce thick client writing directly to the shared Phenix database bypasses any API layer, and the committed PFX signing key is a secrets-hygiene issue. Low priority on stack grounds; the sensible move is folding this switch into an existing admin UI or API rather than upgrading it.