Qstack Make Operations Idempotent

Make operations idempotent

An idempotent operation converges from any state a previous attempt could have left behind. A duplicate request that merely happens not to fail is not enough.

Test convergence

1. List every durable mutation and external side effect in execution order.
2. Model two consecutive runs from the completed state. When verification is authorized in a safe environment, run both and compare the real end state, not only the exit code.
3. Model a crash after every mutation point and the rerun from each partial state. Fault-inject only under the verification authority described below.
4. Include stale locks, abandoned temporary files, live sessions, regenerated input, reordered records, and content-equivalent artifacts where relevant.
5. Add reconciliation before mutation whenever leftover state changes the next run's result. Prefer adoption, content comparison, atomic replacement, single ownership, and stale-owner detection over creation-order guesses.
6. Prove repeated and resumed runs satisfy the same domain invariants. Generated identifiers or timestamps need not be byte-identical unless the domain requires that.

Report the mutation map, failure points tested, stale-state policy, convergence proof, and any unresolved case. Never clear or overwrite user data merely to make a retry pass without explicit authority for that destructive behavior. Before reclaiming a lock or live session, prove ownership and liveness.

A design or review request is analysis-only: it does not authorize executing a mutating operation, injecting a crash, creating a disposable environment, or causing external side effects. Run repeated or partial-failure tests only when the request authorizes verification and the environment is disposable and safe. Live or external effects such as charges, messages, database writes, or process interruption require explicit authority for those exact effects. When direct proof would exceed that authority, report the case as UNPROVEN. Analysis alone also does not authorize edits, commits, pushes, publishing, deployment, or external messages.

Adapted from Lauren Tan's PStack principle-make-operations-idempotent at commit 60c641e4fad674784b30abcf9f8915dea39df38d under the MIT License. See third-party notices.