Production-Ready ASP.NET Core API for Intercity Bus Seat Booking
Most student APIs stop at CRUD. Build an intercity bus seat booking API in ASP.NET Core that is production-ready from day one: safe seat holds under heavy concurrency, health checks, rate limiting, OpenTelemetry traces and metrics, structured logging, problem details errors, migrations, integration tests with real databases and a load test for the Eid travel rush. Publish it as a template others can start from.
Intermediate
A small team, or one strong student willing to learn something new.1 semester · 1 to 2 students
7 to ship
3 optional extrasSuggested stack
What you should ship
- Endpoints for routes, schedules, seat maps, seat holds with expiry, booking confirmation and cancellation, with versioned OpenAPI docs
- Concurrency-safe seat holds (database constraints plus optimistic concurrency or Redis locks), proven by a test that fires hundreds of simultaneous holds on one seat
- Health checks for liveness and readiness covering the database and Redis
- Rate limiting with ASP.NET Core's built-in middleware: per user, per IP, and a stricter policy on hold endpoints
- OpenTelemetry traces, metrics and logs exported to a local Grafana stack, with a dashboard for bookings, holds and errors
- Consistent errors using RFC 9457 problem details, input validation and idempotency keys for confirmation
- Integration tests with Testcontainers, a GitHub Actions pipeline, a Docker image and a load test report simulating a holiday rush
If you have time left
- A payment webhook with a fake provider and reconciliation
- Seat release on hold expiry using a background service
- .NET Aspire for local orchestration
The problem: student APIs that would fall over on day one
Before Eid, travellers across Pakistan rush to book intercity bus seats. Booking sites slow down, seats get double-sold, and customers see vague errors. That is a perfect real-world problem for learning what makes an API production-ready: concurrency, limits, observability and testing.
Most final-year projects build CRUD endpoints and stop. Employers hiring .NET developers, from software houses in Lahore and Karachi to companies in the Gulf and Europe, look for exactly the things those projects skip.
What already exists and the gap
- Microsoft's eShop reference application shows a modern .NET architecture at a larger scale.
- Popular clean architecture templates for .NET give a project structure.
- ASP.NET Core now includes rate limiting, health checks and problem details built in, and OpenTelemetry has first-class .NET support.
The gap is a focused, well-tested, domain-specific example that shows all of these working together under realistic load, with a clear write-up of each decision, small enough for one or two students and useful as a template afterwards.
Inspiration
Ticketing is a classic concurrency problem. Selling one seat to two people is the bug every booking system must avoid, and proving you avoided it under load is a strong portfolio story.
What you build
- The booking API with seat holds and confirmations.
- Production defaults: health checks, rate limiting, telemetry, problem details, idempotency.
- Tests and a load test that prove it works.
- A template with documentation.
The technically interesting part
- Seat holds. Compare a database unique constraint, optimistic concurrency with row versions, and a Redis lock. Measure correctness and throughput for each.
- Rate limiting that is fair. Protect the system from bots without blocking a family booking six seats.
- Observability. Trace a booking from request to database and see exactly where time goes during the rush.
How you will evaluate it
- Zero double bookings in the concurrency test, with each strategy's throughput.
- p95 latency and error rate under the simulated rush.
- Code coverage and the time for a new developer to run the template locally.
Path to a product
Bus operators, event organisers and clinics all need booking engines. The template is also directly reusable by software houses starting new .NET services, and a strong showcase for backend roles.
Scope warning
Do not scrape real operators' sites or use their brand names. Keep the domain small: routes, seats, holds and bookings.
Learn what you need on Sefism
- .NET roadmap: C#, ASP.NET Core, EF Core, testing and deployment.
- .NET cheat sheet: the APIs you will use most, in one page.
- ASP.NET Core documentation: rate limiting, health checks and problem details.
- Microsoft Learn: C#: the language, if you are new to it.
- .NET unit testing with xUnit: the test framework.
- OpenTelemetry documentation: traces and metrics.
- Backend roadmap: API design, caching and reliability.
- Is .NET worth learning in 2026?: where .NET skills are hired and why.
Get help with this idea
The risk is building every feature and proving none of them. Tauseef can help you choose what to measure and present a project that shows real production skills. If you are new here, create a free account first.
Ideas and guidance, not finished projects
These are project ideas and scoping guidance, published free for students to use as a starting point. I do not build, write, or sell final-year projects, and I do not complete coursework for anyone. Take an idea, make it yours, and build it.
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I help students pick an idea that matches their skills and their deadline, then scope it down until it is finishable. Guidance only, never done for you.
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