Today was a small change on the surface, but an important one in terms of integration discipline.
What I Did
Today’s focus was on updating the border generation integration between PA (Staff App) and the Files API.
- Updated the Files API endpoint used by PA for border generation.
- Switched from the legacy endpoint to the new:/api/v1/border-generation
- Kept the payload structure exactly the same.
- Did not modify request shape, validation logic, or response handling.
- Avoided touching UI or database logic.
- Ensured authentication and error handling remain unchanged.
This was intentionally a minimal, production-safe change.
What I Learned
1. Integration changes should be surgical
When working across systems (PA ↔ Files API), even a small endpoint change can introduce risk.
The key lesson today:
Change as little as possible.
No refactors.
No “while we’re here” improvements.
No payload redesign.
Just replace the endpoint and preserve behavior.
2. Backward compatibility mindset matters
PA is designed to live in mixed states:
- Legacy metadata
- New EXIF table
- Partial migrations
- Incremental rollouts
Today reinforced that:
Stability comes from respecting existing contracts.
Even though Files API evolved its routing, the contract (payload shape) remained stable — and that’s the real boundary that matters.
3. Production safety is a habit, not a feature
This change required:
- No schema changes
- No UI updates
- No new logic branches
- No database mutations
That’s ideal.
A clean integration change is one that users never notice.
Reflection
There’s something satisfying about disciplined engineering.
Not every day is about big architecture decisions or complex debugging.
Some days are about maintaining trust between systems.
Today was about:
- Respecting boundaries
- Avoiding unnecessary change
- Keeping PA stable
Small change.
High confidence.