Distinguish a discontinued item from an item missing on one page
A transient missing page made hundreds of products look deleted. Apply absence-based tombstones only after a complete authoritative snapshot, while preserving explicit deletion events.
- Focused work estimate
- 3h 30m + prerequisites
- Priority in the scenario
- High
- Engineering practice
- Snapshot consistency · Reconciliation · Deletion semantics · Race conditions
Estimated field mix
- Integrations50%
- Data engineering30%
- Distributed systems20%
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 retailer receives stock from two vendor warehouses. The vendor API paginates snapshots and emits change events, but retries and deleted products have caused unexplained stock drift. Work against a local vendor simulator.
Setup prerequisites
- Create a local vendor API simulator with cursor pages and stock events.
- Use synthetic tenants, SKUs, and warehouse records; no vendor account is required.
Preceding work
Complete these dependencies, or supply their agreed outputs before taking this ticket.
Acceptance criteria
- An incomplete snapshot cannot discontinue items through absence.
- A completed snapshot marks only previously mapped items absent from that exact vendor scope as candidates for discontinuation.
- A newer explicit stock event received during snapshot ingestion is not overwritten by an older absence decision.
Implementation constraints
- Record the snapshot consistency boundary and event watermark.
- If the simulator cannot guarantee a consistency boundary, surface uncertainty and require review.
Verification to include
- Fail the final page and verify no absence-based tombstones are applied.
- Deliver a newer event during snapshot ingestion and confirm finalization preserves it or reports a review conflict.
Deliverables
- Snapshot finalization policy and deletion/event race tests
Rollout and recovery
Generate discontinuation proposals first; enable automatic tombstones only for connectors with the documented snapshot guarantee.
Value of the work
For the engineer: Practice external contracts, cursor recovery, mapping conflicts, and reconciliation under partial failure.
For the team: Inspect whether integration changes protect inventory correctness and give operators a clear recovery path.
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.