Smoke tests, release gates, and operational limits

Smoke Test Strategy

Before promoting code to production, run a deterministic smoke test suite that validates:

• • Task creation with idempotency key reuse
• • Status polling until terminal state
• • Evidence retrieval and structure validation
• • Error handling for 4xx/5xx responses
• • Rate limit compliance and backoff behavior

Webhook Simulation

Test webhook handling before release by simulating lifecycle events locally:

{
  "event": "task.completed",
  "taskId": "task_test_123",
  "status": "completed",
  "timestamp": "2026-02-14T22:00:00Z",
  "evidence": {
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://...",
    "metadata": {}
  }
}

import crypto from "node:crypto";

function verifyWebhook(body: string, signature: string, secret: string) {
  const expected = crypto
    .createHmac("sha256", secret)
    .update(body)
    .digest("hex");
  
  return crypto.timingSafeEqual(
    Buffer.from(signature),
    Buffer.from(expected)
  );
}

// Test with known payload and secret
const testPayload = JSON.stringify({ event: "task.completed" });
const testSecret = "test_webhook_secret";
const validSig = crypto.createHmac("sha256", testSecret)
  .update(testPayload)
  .digest("hex");

console.assert(verifyWebhook(testPayload, validSig, testSecret));

Release Gate Criteria

A deployment passes release gates when:

1. 1. All smoke tests pass in staging environment
2. 2. Webhook signature verification succeeds
3. 3. Idempotency key collision handling is validated
4. 4. Rate limit backoff logic is confirmed
5. 5. Error response parsing covers all documented codes

Endpoint Surface

Rate Limits

Limits vary by plan and endpoint class. Handle 429 responses with retry backoff and preserve idempotency keys on retry.

x-ratelimit-limit: 120
x-ratelimit-remaining: 0
x-ratelimit-reset: 1710000000

// Safe retry pattern
if (status === 429) {
  const retryAfter = Number(response.headers.get("retry-after") ?? 1);
  await sleep(retryAfter * 1000 + jitter());
  // Retry with same idempotency key
}

Error Model