[nooby6]

Summary

• Add GET /api/v1/employees with optional active-status, department, and case-insensitive name/employee-number search filters.
• Add deterministic ordering and bounded pagination (page >= 0, size 1–100) with explicit pagination metadata.
• Keep the endpoint behind the existing authenticated API policy and add controller tests for authentication, filtering, metadata, and invalid page sizes.

Validation

• Added MVC tests; GitHub Actions must confirm the branch build before merge.