Define what happens when a pagination cursor expires

Name the decision before opening the code

This assignment suits API teams paging through changing datasets. The brief should say whether an old cursor fails clearly or resumes without gaps and duplicates. Pin the repository revision, test environment, data constraints, reviewer, and stop condition. That keeps the investigation useful without handing production authority to the developer.

Reproduce the ordinary path once

Start with a synthetic case that should pass. Record cursor age, query fingerprint, item IDs, sort keys, and error response. A clean baseline matters because a surprising boundary result is hard to interpret when the normal path is already unstable.

Acceptance record

Scroll sideways to read every column on a small screen.

Make the uncomfortable case explicit

Now test this case: new records land ahead of the cursor between page requests. Change one input at a time. Preserve the exact request, state transition, observed result, and timestamp so a reviewer can distinguish product behavior from a fixture mistake.

Fix the smallest responsible surface

Trace the result to the narrowest code or configuration boundary that explains it. Add a regression check close to that boundary, then repeat the user-facing path. Document any nearby path you deliberately left alone.

Keep access and release decisions internal

An offshore developer can prepare fixtures, investigate, implement a bounded correction, and package the evidence. Internal owners approve sensitive access, architecture exceptions, irreversible data changes, incident communications, and production release.

Leave a handoff another shift can replay

Close with the starting and ending revisions, fixtures, commands, passed and skipped checks, logs or screenshots, limitations, rollback notes, and named reviewer. State precisely what the work showed about whether an old cursor fails clearly or resumes without gaps and duplicates.

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