Evaluate a partial index for open work without slowing closure updates
Only a small fraction of work orders remain open. A broad index makes the open inbox faster but adds substantial storage and maintenance cost.
- Focused work estimate
- 4h + prerequisites
- Priority in the scenario
- High
- Engineering practice
- Indexing · Read/write tradeoffs
Estimated field mix
- Database engineering50%
- Performance engineering50%
Field percentages are editorial estimates of the ticket's engineering focus. They total 100%; they are not measured time, proficiency scores, or ownership evidence.
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Project context
A fictional maintenance service lists open work orders beside years of closed history. A query that was cheap in a small demo now scans far more rows than it returns. Recreate the schema and synthetic workload locally; no customer database or supplied fixture is assumed.
Setup prerequisites
- Create an isolated local database with tenants, work orders and assignment history.
- Seed 200,000 synthetic work orders with documented skew and a repeatable random seed; record PostgreSQL version, settings and resource limits.
Preceding work
Complete these dependencies, or supply their agreed outputs before taking this ticket.
Acceptance criteria
- Compare the current plan with at least one partial index aligned with the actual open-state predicate and order.
- Measure index size, inbox latency and update throughput for work moving into and out of the indexed state.
- Keep the candidate only if its read benefit and write tradeoff satisfy explicitly stated exercise budgets.
Implementation constraints
- Use three paired runs on the same synthetic data and settings; do not force index use or disable planner options to manufacture a result.
Verification to include
- Run open, closed and mixed-state filters and verify both result equivalence and selected plans.
- Close and reopen a fixed batch while reading the inbox; report lock waits, write duration and index size.
Deliverables
- Index decision record, migration draft and comparative measurements
Rollout and recovery
Apply the index in the isolated database first; the rollback drops only the added index and preserves all work-order data.
Value of the work
For the engineer: Practice reading execution plans, balancing read and write cost, and validating performance without weakening tenant boundaries.
For the team: Create reproducible query diagnostics and reversible index or query proposals for an operational application.
Evidence boundaries
Outcome Evidence: Tests, patches, and runbooks are requested deliverables. They become Outcome Evidence only through a qualified Mission and immutable Evidence IDs.
Ownership Evidence: Independent adaptation must be observed under a declared verification policy and cite immutable Evidence IDs. Completing a planning ticket establishes no Ownership Evidence.