Construction contractors: reporting dashboard using Django

Summary

A reporting dashboard blueprint for construction contractors built with Django on Ample. Domain schema: listings (reference, project_type, location, publishing_status, agency_id): showcase projects with publishing status; agencies (name, license_number, service_region): branches or divisions; vendors (name, trade, agency_id, prequalified): subcontractors and suppliers per branch; reports (agency_id, period, object_key, generated_at): branch progress reports; exports (id, definition, object_key, row_count, generated_at, authorized_role): generated artifacts and who may download them. Public information: published project showcases, services and regions, licenses and insurance summary. Kept out of scope until handling is reviewed: site safety incidents, bid pricing, client contracts. Safety and bid data are confidential; only published showcases and branch reporting are modeled. Technical basis verified on Django: an export query rendered to a CSV artifact stored with metadata in a private bucket and returned only to an authorized caller (401 without token, export=ok rows=3).

Infrastructure requirements

• Compute: verified (Apps run in isolated x86_64 Firecracker microVMs that auto-pause when idle and wake on request; sizes are the priced VM sizes.)
• Postgres: verified (Managed PostgreSQL 16 runs in its own microVM and is auto-provisioned when an app needs a database and no DATABASE_URL is supplied.)
• S3-compatible object storage: verified (Buckets are S3-compatible with issued credentials; PutObject and GetObject are verified by canary. Other S3 operations are not verified.)

Prerequisites

• A Django project (pip install into .ample/python from requirements.txt, then waitress serving project.wsgi from run.py reading PORT on the python-3.12 template)
• A PostgreSQL driver reading DATABASE_URL (auto-provisioned when omitted)
• Bucket credentials from ample bucket create passed as encrypted S3_* environment variables
• A review of which construction contractors data classes may be handled at all; this blueprint models public information only

Steps

1. Model the construction contractors domain. Create the tables listings, agencies, vendors, reports, exports. Showcase projects with publishing status lives in listings; keep the sensitive classes (site safety incidents, bid pricing, client contracts) out of this schema.
2. Workflow step 1. Model report definitions scoped to the agency
3. Workflow step 2. Generate report artifacts from queries and store them with metadata
4. Workflow step 3. Authorize downloads (401 without identity)
5. Workflow step 4. Deploy and verify an authorized export and the rejected anonymous request
6. Deploy. Run the synchronous deploy once and read the result. Re-running with no change is a no-op.

   ample deploy . --name <app-name> --public --start "python3 run.py" --env S3_ENDPOINT=... --env S3_REGION=... --env S3_BUCKET=... --env S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=... --env S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...

7. Verify. Run the pattern self-test(s) from the example (/p/generated-downloads) and your own acceptance checks for the construction contractors workflow.

   ample logs <deployment_id> --kind build

Cost estimate

Estimated 10.00 USD per month (size prices from pricing.toml at build revision a1b8c38919e59cd035ebabaced73cf84ece24371).

• app server x1 s-1vcpu-1gb: 5.00 USD
• managed PostgreSQL database x1 s-1vcpu-1gb: 5.00 USD

Always-on monthly price of the tested sizes; apps and databases auto-pause when idle. Buckets are allocation-priced per quota and not included.

Verification evidence

• canary_run on 2026-09-20T03:31:44Z at revision 03b6402b1b3e19178985f08ea4033804521d85d4-dirty (CLI b75e104): Django pattern fixture deployed on Ample (pip install into .ample/python from requirements.txt, then waitress serving project.wsgi from run.py reading PORT on the python-3.12 template); the generated downloads checks passed: an export query rendered to a CSV artifact stored with metadata in a private bucket and returned only to an authorized caller (401 without token, export=ok rows=3).

Last verified: 2026-09-20T03:31:44Z