cesnimda
02b38f7acb
Phase 5.4. Connects the career outputs a user already has to one job
application, without building a second copy of any of them.
The flow is strictly one-directional — CareerProfile -> CvVariant ->
application output — and nothing writes back up. No code path in this phase
touches CareerProfile or its children.
CV integration re-points rather than duplicates. GET/PUT /{id}/cv attaches one
variant to an application via CvVariant.JobApplicationId; replacing detaches the
previous variant instead of deleting it. Creating, duplicating, editing, theming,
previewing, exporting PDF and version history all stay in the existing CV
builder, which the section links into. There is no second CV system.
Tailoring composes the Phase 5.3 analysis and match into skills to highlight,
experience to prioritise, projects to emphasise, keywords to include and gaps to
address. Deterministic and advisory: it says what the user could emphasise and
the user edits the variant themselves. Nothing auto-applies.
Cover letters gain the history they were missing. JobApplication.CoverLetterText
stays the current text with its API contract unchanged; CoverLetterVersions
records what it used to be, so an AI rewrite is never destructive. Restore is
additive — the old text comes back as a new version, so what you restored from
still exists. Source and AiAction record whether the user wrote a version or
approved it from a suggestion, and an AI generation only becomes a version once
the user saves it.
Documents are untouched: the existing Attachment system already covers CV, cover
letter, certificates and portfolio files with a Purpose field, so the workspace
mounts that component rather than adding a second upload path.
CoverLetterVersions is the only new table — reconciler-owned, no-op migration,
guarded on JobApplications, and verified on a fresh MariaDB 11: int
AUTO_INCREMENT primary key, varchar(255) owner, datetime(6), composite index
inside the key limit.
360 backend tests, 115 frontend tests, type check, Release build and the
production build all pass locally.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
160 lines
7.3 KiB
Markdown
160 lines
7.3 KiB
Markdown
# Database ownership and startup order
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> 2026-07-19. Which component creates which table, in what order, and why a clean MariaDB install used
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> to fail. Read this before adding a table or touching `StartupInitializationExtensions`.
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## The problem this document exists to prevent
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EF Core bakes **provider-specific type names into a migration at scaffold time**. Every migration in
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this repo was scaffolded against SQLite, so run against MariaDB it emits:
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- `TEXT` for `DateTimeOffset` and every unbounded string
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- `INTEGER` for `bool` and `int`
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- a `PRIMARY KEY` with **no** `AUTO_INCREMENT`
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A composite index over one of those `TEXT`/`longtext` columns then exceeds MySQL's 3072-byte key
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limit and startup dies with `Specified key was too long`. This is not theoretical — it crashed
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production once (Phase 4 `CvVariants`) and made every clean MariaDB install fail until 2026-07-19.
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**Rule: a table whose migration was scaffolded against SQLite must not be created by that migration
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on MariaDB.** Empty the migration and give the table to the reconciler, which carries correct DDL per
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provider.
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## Startup order
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`InitializeJobTrackerAsync` runs exactly this sequence:
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```
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1. Connect
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2. ReconcileSchema() ← pass 1: repair existing schema, create reconciler-owned tables
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3. Database.Migrate() ← create every migration-owned table
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4. ReconcileSchema() ← pass 2: everything pass 1 had to skip
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5. Seed admin, start services
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```
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### Why the reconciler runs twice
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Neither position alone works:
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- **Pass 1 must come first.** A legacy database has hand-added columns and Identity tables that
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predate the migrations; without repairing them (and stamping the legacy migration id into
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`__EFMigrationsHistory`) `Migrate()` collides with them. `AddCareerProfileRelationalChildren` also
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adds children that reference `CareerProfiles`, a **reconciler-owned** table — so it must exist
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before migrations run.
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- **Pass 2 must come after.** On a brand-new database the migration-owned tables do not exist during
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pass 1, so every reconciler table that references one (FK into `JobApplications`) is skipped, as
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are the index and `AUTO_INCREMENT` repairs.
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Every statement in `ReconcileSchema` is existence-guarded, so the second pass is a no-op scan on an
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already-correct database. Two consequences worth knowing:
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- The `DbConnection` is **not** wrapped in `using` — it belongs to the `DbContext`, and disposing it
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in pass 1 made pass 2 throw `ObjectDisposedException`.
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- `conn.Open()` is guarded on `ConnectionState`, because pass 2 may inherit an open connection.
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## Ownership
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### Migration-owned
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Created by EF migrations, never by the reconciler:
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`Companies`, `JobApplications`, `Jobs`, `Correspondences`, `Attachments`, `JobEvents`,
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`RuleSettings`, and the ASP.NET Identity tables.
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The reconciler may **repair** these (add a missing column, add an index, fix a non-`AUTO_INCREMENT`
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primary key) and may seed the default `RuleSettings` row — but it must never `CREATE TABLE` them.
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It used to create `RuleSettings`, which is precisely why a clean install failed with
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`Table 'RuleSettings' already exists` once `Migrate()` reached the initial migration.
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### Reconciler-owned
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Created by `StartupInitializationExtensions`, with a **no-op migration** holding the model snapshot:
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`UserRuleSettings`, `SystemEmailSettings`, `CvUploadArtifacts`, `CvExtractionRuns`,
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`GmailConnections`, `MicrosoftGraphConnections`, `ImapConnections`, `TailoredCvDrafts`,
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`CareerProfiles`, `CareerProfileVersions`, the six CareerProfile children (`CareerExperiences`,
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`CareerEducations`, `CareerSkills`, `CareerProjects`, `CareerCertifications`, `CareerLanguages`),
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`InterviewPrepNotes`, `AiWorkspaceNotes`, `CvVariants`, `CvVariantVersions`, `AiInteractions`,
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`ApplicationChecklistItems`, `CoverLetterVersions`, `TwoFactorRecoveryCodes`, `TrustedDevices`,
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`UserSessions`.
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No-op migrations, each with a comment explaining why:
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| Migration | Tables |
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|---|---|
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| `20260717222917_AddCareerProfileRelationalChildren` | the six CareerProfile children |
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| `20260718074509_AddCvVariants` | `CvVariants`, `CvVariantVersions` |
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| `20260718131138_AddAiInteractions` | `AiInteractions` |
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| `20260719085904_AddApplicationChecklistItems` | `ApplicationChecklistItems` |
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| `20260719094728_SyncCareerChildKeyLengths` | snapshot sync only |
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| `20260719120954_AddCoverLetterVersions` | `CoverLetterVersions` |
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### Dependency guards
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A reconciler table that references another table is guarded on **its parent existing**, so pass 1
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skips it on a fresh database and pass 2 creates it:
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| Table | Waits for |
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|---|---|
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| `TailoredCvDrafts`, `InterviewPrepNotes`, `AiWorkspaceNotes`, `CvVariants`, `AiInteractions`, `ApplicationChecklistItems`, `CoverLetterVersions` | `JobApplications` (migration-owned) |
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| `CvVariantVersions` | `CvVariants` |
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| `CareerProfileVersions`, the six CareerProfile children | `CareerProfiles` |
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| `CvExtractionRuns` | `CvUploadArtifacts` |
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Index creation goes through one helper, `EnsureMySqlIndex`, which is guarded on **table** existence
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as well as index existence — repairing an absent table is not pass 1's job.
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## Adding a new table
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1. Add the entity and its `DbSet`, and **bound every indexed string** with `HasMaxLength` — an
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unbounded string becomes `longtext`, which MariaDB cannot index without a prefix length. This is
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what broke the CareerProfile children.
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2. `dotnet ef migrations add …`, then **empty the `Up`/`Down`** and say why in a comment.
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3. Add SQLite DDL (`CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS`) and MySQL DDL (`int AUTO_INCREMENT`, `varchar(n)`,
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`datetime(6)`, `tinyint(1)`) to the reconciler. Guard the MySQL create on any parent table.
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4. Create indexes via `EnsureMySqlIndex` / `CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS`.
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5. Verify on a real MariaDB container — see below. EF InMemory will not catch any of this.
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## Fresh install
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No manual database preparation. Point the app at an **empty** database and start it:
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```bash
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# MariaDB
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Database__Provider=mysql \
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ConnectionStrings__JobTracker="Server=…;Database=jobtracker;User=…;Password=…;" \
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dotnet run --project JobTrackerApi/JobTrackerApi.csproj
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# SQLite (default) — creates Data__Root/jobtracker.db
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dotnet run --project JobTrackerApi/JobTrackerApi.csproj
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```
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Create the empty schema/database itself (`CREATE DATABASE jobtracker;`); the application builds
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everything inside it.
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## Production upgrade
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Deploy and restart. The reconciler is idempotent and additive:
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- it never drops a table that holds rows (`DropMalformedMySqlTable` checks the row count first)
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- it only adds missing columns, tables and indexes
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- migrations already recorded in `__EFMigrationsHistory` are not re-run, so emptying a migration's
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`Up` changes nothing for an existing database
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No downtime step, no manual SQL, no data migration.
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## Verified
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All four scenarios, 2026-07-19, against MariaDB 11 and SQLite:
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| Scenario | Result |
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| Empty MariaDB | 40 tables created, app starts |
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| Populated MariaDB, restart | idempotent — still 40 tables, rows preserved |
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| Empty MariaDB via the Docker image | 40 tables created, app starts |
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| Fresh SQLite | 42 tables created, app starts |
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| Existing partially-migrated SQLite dev DB (34 tables) | upgraded to 44 tables, 13 applications and 8 companies preserved |
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Column types on MariaDB spot-checked: `int AUTO_INCREMENT` primary keys, `varchar(255)` owner keys,
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`datetime(6)` timestamps, `tinyint(1)` booleans, and every composite index inside the key limit.
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