Marc-André Bombeck 2ab66ab2e3 fix(ingest): refuse an external id that cannot be a stable identity ...

An external id is half of every ingest dedup key — (userId, source,
externalId), (userId, externalSource, externalId), (userId, type,
source, externalId). Re-posting the same triple is idempotent and
returns the existing row, which holds only while the id is stable
across client launches. A client that serialised an opaque platform
object with its default object description sent a per-allocation
memory address instead, so no sweep ever matched its own earlier row
and each one minted a fresh record: a live instance grew 23 phantom
medications in a day, none of which could collect a dose, because the
dose side resolved through the same rotating string.

Add one shared classifier for identifiers that provably cannot be an
identity — an angle-bracketed object description carrying a hex
pointer, a bare 0x address, and a blank value — and wire it at every
surface that accepts a client-supplied externalId.

Single-entry creates refuse through the schema, so the client gets the
standard 422 multi-issue envelope with a message naming the shape it
sent and what to send instead. Batch and bulk surfaces classify per
entry and report the offending row as skipped with reason
unstable_external_id, leaving the rest of the payload to land: one bad
row must not stop a sync. Every refusal carries pinned wide-event meta
(count, shape, surface) and never the id itself.

A structural guard freezes both routes into the floor: a request-side
externalId declaration either applies the field check or carries a
marker naming the file that checks it per entry, and the guard verifies
that file really does. The backup-restore payload is the one exemption,
with its reason recorded — it replays ids the server itself wrote.

2026-07-25 17:21:00 +02:00

1.1 MiB

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