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Luke Tornquist fcdabcf774 docs(db): database target architecture and schema-change rules (#8273)
## Summary

Adds `docs/database.md`, which covers two things:

- **The target architecture.** `schema/tables/public/` is the
declarative source of truth, written within the constraints that
out-of-band, online schema tools can apply. Deployments at scale apply
schema changes out of band; auto-migration stays supported for smaller
and self-hosted deployments, and `migrations/` stays. The database has
no triggers, functions, or foreign keys; that behavior lives in the
owning application transaction or in durable application work. Data
repair runs through the backfill framework in `docs/data-backfills.md`,
not through migrations.
- **Rules for schema changes made now:**
1. Add no triggers, functions, procedures, rules, or foreign keys, with
no exceptions. New tenant-owned tables are fenced by community admission
in the application. Startup and deletion validation already tolerate
missing fences, but desired-state bootstraps still attach a fence
trigger to every `community_id` table, so a new tenant-owned table is
blocked until that loop stops (part of the fence-retirement work). The
doc includes checklists for adding a tenant-owned table and a
provenance-only table.
2. Migrations change schema only. They never mutate existing rows. Until
the backfill framework ships, a repair may be a reviewed, idempotent,
batched one-off script in `scripts/maintenance/` that takes the
community deletion lock and touches only active communities. A repair
that writes historical channel events must keep replica routing closed
until its WAL has replayed.
3. Update every schema location: `migrations/`, `schema/tables/public/`,
the manifest and sibling directories, the pgschema reconcile script
where it applies, and both homes of the existing `push_gateway_*` tables
(the target is for the gateway to own its tables alone). Never edit a
merged migration. Add catalog-level parity tests for what you touch.
4. Every migration must be safe for the relay that is currently
deployed, under both supported modes: auto-migration at startup and
out-of-band application. Either way the old relay runs against the new
schema for a while. Because auto-migration can apply expand and contract
in one boot, a contract migration must fail closed when its backfill has
not run, and a contract that depends on a writer release (such as
dropping a trigger whose work moved into the app) must name that release
as a required stop in the release notes, because no row check can prove
it. The order is expand, deploy, backfill, then contract. The doc
includes a table of changes that break the old relay and the safe form
of each.
5. Bound every lock, build `migrations/` indexes concurrently (the
declarative schema uses plain `CREATE INDEX`), and keep changes within
what out-of-band apply can make online.

AGENTS.md (Product Contract), ARCHITECTURE.md (buzz-db), and new
path-local `migrations/AGENTS.md`, `schema/AGENTS.md` (a pointer), and
`crates/buzz-push-gateway/migrations/AGENTS.md` point to the doc. The
path-local files mean agents editing those directories get the rules
automatically. AGENTS.md also had a stale claim that migrations are
"auto-applied on relay startup". This PR corrects it:
`BUZZ_AUTO_MIGRATE` defaults off in the binary and on in the Helm chart,
and both modes are supported.

## What got simpler

The rules were scattered across `schema/schema.sql` comments, AGENTS.md
Common Gotcha #7, the backfill spec, `docs/thread-window-deployment.md`,
and test names. They now live in one document, and the rest link to it.
No code changes.

## Testing

This PR changes documentation only. I checked links and diffs, and every
claim in the doc points to code at the base commit: the layout and
parity tests in `crates/buzz-db/src/runtime/migration.rs`,
`EXPECTED_SCOPED_TABLES` and the serving-catalog check in
`crates/buzz-db/src/store/deletion.rs`, and `BUZZ_AUTO_MIGRATE` in
`crates/buzz-relay/src/main.rs`. The new `AGENTS.md` files aren't
`.sql`, so neither the sqlx migrator nor the schema layout test picks
them up; CI's layout, migration-count, and deletion-parity tests pass.

At an earlier head, a real relay against isolated PostgreSQL 17 showed
that a new unfenced `community_id` table serves normally and makes
community deletion report `unknown=<table>`. Since then, the fence
requirement at startup was removed on main; the doc now cites
`migration_schema_fence_objects_are_optional_for_serving_and_deletion`
for that.

---------

Signed-off-by: Elrond <28d6302a099e5225b02c4155ac4236e4912603df2ab08dbfc2f4fef08ce598c8@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
Co-authored-by: Elrond <28d6302a099e5225b02c4155ac4236e4912603df2ab08dbfc2f4fef08ce598c8@buzz.block.builderlab.xyz>
2026-10-20 15:47:05 -04:00
..