TELS Quoting Service - Project Overview

Solution Structure

The solution (TELS Quoting.sln) contains 9 projects:

Application Projects

Project	Type	Framework	Description
TELS.Quoting.Api	Web API	.NET 8.0	REST API for bid lifecycle management, pricing, fairness scoring, and PDF-to-bid generation
TELS.Quoting.MQServices	Console App	.NET 8.0	RabbitMQ subscriber for bid expiration, fairness calculation, and PDF processing
TELS.Quoting.Contracts	Library	.NET Standard 1.0 / 2.0	Shared event and data contracts (published as NuGet v3.14.0, namespace: `TELS.Bidding.Contracts`)
TELS.Quoting.PostgresDbUp	Console App	.NET 8.0	DbUp database migration tool for PostgreSQL
TELS.Quoting.DataUpdater	Console App	.NET 8.0	Data synchronization/update utility
PDFToBidOfflineValidation	Web App	.NET 8.0	PDF processing validation service

Test Projects

Project	Type	Description
TELS.Quoting.Api.Tests	NUnit (.NET 8.0)	API unit tests
TELS.Quoting.MQServices.Tests	NUnit (.NET 8.0)	Subscriber unit tests
TELS.Quoting.IntegrationTesting	NUnit (.NET 8.0)	End-to-end integration tests (Mountebank)

Architecture

Purpose

TELS Quoting (formerly Bidding) is the bid and quote management service for the TELS ecosystem. It provides:

Bid Lifecycle Management — Full lifecycle from creation through acceptance, cancellation, expiration, or loss/win. Bids are linked to work orders (bid requests) and support multi-bid scenarios, supersession, and revalidation.
Pricing & Margin Management — Configurable pricing modifications at owner, chain, and service levels. Price elasticity models (v1 and v2) with margin targets and adjustments. Tracks margin outcomes for analytics.
AI-Powered Features — PDF-to-bid generation using AWS Bedrock and OpenAI for automated bid extraction from uploaded PDFs. Bid fairness scoring with AI-powered explanations.
Bid Fairness — Automated fairness calculation per bid modification. Partner-perceived fairness tracking. Line-item fairness feedback. Unfair bid explanation generation.
Conversations — Bid conversation threading for clarification requests and fairness discussions.

Layering Pattern

+-----------------------------------------------------+
|  API (TELS.Quoting.Api)                              |
|  BidsController — bid lifecycle & commands            |
|  GeneratedBidsController — PDF-to-bid generation      |
|  CustomerQuotesController — margin outcomes            |
|  PriceElasticityV2Controller — pricing configs         |
|  FeatureTogglesController — feature flags              |
|  DiagnosticsController — health & debug                |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
|  Shared Contracts (TELS.Quoting.Contracts)            |
|  TELS.Bidding.Contracts.V1 — events, data, requests   |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
|  Subscriber (TELS.Quoting.MQServices)                 |
|  BiddingConsumer — expiration, fairness, PDF gen       |
|  WorkItemConsumer — bid cancellation, win/loss         |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
|  DAL (Custom DataProvider + Npgsql)                   |
|  PostgreSQL (bidding database, public schema)          |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

Data Access

PostgreSQL: Npgsql 8.0.5 — Direct ADO.NET access via custom DataProvider pattern
No ORM: Does not use Entity Framework or Dapper
JSONB: Line items (labor, equipment, miscellaneous), assets, and conversations stored as JSONB arrays
Database: bidding (PostgreSQL, public schema)
Migrations: DbUp with PostgreSQL support

Message Queue Integration

Broker: RabbitMQ via MassTransit 8.2.5
Queue: tels.bidding.mqservices (shared across consumers)
Consumers: 2 (BiddingConsumer with 5 message types, WorkItemConsumer with 2 message types)
Published Events: 6 event types via BusProxy with S3 fallback

Key Features

1. Bid Lifecycle

Create, update (PATCH), accept, cancel, expire, lose, win
Request clarification, request/process revalidation
Multi-bid support with related bid cancellation
Bid relationships (SupersededBy) with bidirectional tracking
History tracking with event-sourced audit trail
Optimistic concurrency control
External references via CompositeIdentifier pattern

2. Pricing Modifications

Owner-level pricing configurations (markup/margin targets and limits)
Chain-level pricing configurations
Service-level pricing configurations
Price elasticity v2: configurable margin targets by quote value range, D2Q flag
Price elasticity adjustments with probability weighting
Margin outcome tracking for analytics

3. AI/ML Features

PDF-to-Bid: Upload PDF, extract bid data via AWS Bedrock/OpenAI, generate structured bid
Fairness Scoring: Automated bid fairness calculation with confidence scores
Price Prediction: AI-powered price prediction (bid guidance and price prediction methods)
LLM Chain of Thought: Stored reasoning for generated bids

4. Bid Fairness

Automated fairness calculation triggered on every bid modification (via MQ)
Partner-perceived fairness tracking (service provider's view)
Line-item fairness feedback
Unfair bid and accepting-unfair-bid explanation generation

5. Conversations

Threaded conversations per bid stored as JSONB arrays
Clarification requests and fairness explanations published as events

API Surface

6 controllers exposing 25+ endpoints:

Authentication

JWT Bearer: Symmetric key signing
Custom Authorization: Persona-based (DirectSupplyPartner, ServiceProvider)
Authorization Policies: History, Patch, SetFairness, DsPartnersOnly

See API Documentation for full endpoint details.

Key Technology Stack

Category	Technology
Runtime	.NET 8.0
Web Framework	ASP.NET Core 8.0
Data Access	Npgsql 8.0.5 (PostgreSQL, raw ADO.NET)
Database	PostgreSQL (bidding database)
Messaging	RabbitMQ + MassTransit 8.2.5
AI/ML	AWS Bedrock 3.7.409, OpenAI 2.0-2.5, PdfPig
Auth	JWT Bearer, M2M tokens (DSI.Auth.M2M.Token)
API Docs	Swashbuckle 6.7.3 (at `/quoting/docs`)
Monitoring	New Relic 10.30.0
Resilience	Polly (3 retries, exponential backoff)
Bus Fallback	TELS.BusProxy.Client 2.2.0 (S3 fallback)
Testing	NUnit 4.2.2, Moq 4.20.72, Mountebank

Deployment

Docker Containers

TELS.Quoting.Api — API (port 7147 locally, port 80 in container)
TELS.Quoting.MQServices — Subscriber (no exposed ports)

Environments

Environment	URL
Local	http://localhost:7147
DEV	Sandbox AWS ECS
QA	Testing AWS ECS
PROD	Production AWS ECS

CI/CD Pipeline

Stage	Jobs
Build/Test	dotnet build, unit tests, integration tests, Checkmarx SAST
Docker	Multi-platform builds (arm64/amd64)
Scan	Container vulnerability scanning
Contracts	NuGet v3.14.0 to ProGet
Deploy	Terraform per environment — DB snapshots, DbUp, API, subscriber

Infrastructure

Platform: AWS ECS (ARM64 Graviton2)
Database: AWS RDS PostgreSQL
Secrets: HashiCorp Vault
Monitoring: New Relic APM, CloudWatch
IaC: Terraform (modules: api, subscriber, data-lake, dependencies)

External Integrations

Integration	Mechanism	Description
Auth Service	HTTP API	Token refresh for service-to-service auth
BuildingServices (CloudAPI)	HTTP API + NuGet (`BuildingServices.Contracts`)	Service providers, bid requests, markets
Customers Service	HTTP API + NuGet (`TELS.Customers.Contracts`)	Facility and owner data
Platform Service	HTTP API + NuGet (`TELS.Platform.Contracts`)	Feature toggles and subsystem settings
Files Service	HTTP API + NuGet (`TELS.WebServiceClients.Files.V1`)	PDF file access for bid generation
Assets Service	NuGet (`TELS.WebServiceClients.Assets.V1`)	Asset data
Work Items Events	MQ + NuGet (`TELS.WorkItems.Events`)	Status and fulfillment events
BusProxy	HTTP API (NuGet client)	Event publishing with S3 fallback
AWS Bedrock	SDK	LLM inference for PDF-to-bid and fairness
OpenAI	SDK	Alternative LLM for bid processing

NuGet Packages Published

Package	Target	Published To
TELS.Quoting.Contracts (namespace: TELS.Bidding.Contracts)	.NET Standard 1.0 / 2.0	ProGet (v3.14.0)

Notes

Renamed from Bidding: The service was renamed from TELS Bidding to TELS Quoting. The NuGet package namespace retains TELS.Bidding.Contracts for backward compatibility. The database is still named bidding.
PostgreSQL + JSONB: Like Platform, this service uses PostgreSQL instead of SQL Server. Line items, assets, and conversations are stored as JSONB arrays — a flexible schema for variable bid structures.
AI integration: One of the more advanced TELS services with AWS Bedrock and OpenAI integrations for PDF extraction and fairness scoring. LLM chain-of-thought reasoning is persisted.
Price elasticity v2: A sophisticated pricing model with configurable margin targets by quote value range, probability-weighted adjustments, and D2Q differentiation.
Legacy routing: Both /quoting/v1/ and /bidding/v1/ route prefixes are supported for backward compatibility.
Multi-target contracts: Targets both .NET Standard 1.0 and 2.0 for maximum consumer compatibility.