The Runtime Theory
medium · 3h · 9 steps

Backend APIs, Identity, and Safe Retries

Design request contracts that remain understandable under authentication, retries, timeouts, and duplicate delivery.

Curriculum (9 steps)

1

An API contract defines the meaning of operations, inputs, outputs, errors, and side effects.

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2

An interactive concept flow for designing apis around explicit semantics, from its assumptions through the main operation and boundary checks.

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3

Authentication answers who or what is making a request; authorization decides which actions that identity may perform on a resource.

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4

Follow the key state changes and boundary checks involved in authentication, sessions, and authorization.

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5

Explain the model, execution steps, complexity, and limits of authentication, sessions, and authorization.

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6

A retry repeats work after the caller cannot determine whether an earlier attempt completed.

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7

Follow the key state changes and boundary checks involved in retries need an operation contract.

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8

An interactive concept flow for retries need an operation contract, from its assumptions through the main operation and boundary checks.

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9

Track the last accepted timestamp for each message and reason about state growth, ordering, and concurrent requests.

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