driver-sql's varchar-sizing type list and spec's BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES must now agree, and nothing pins them — the same three-lists-disagree defect #11566 was filed for, one layer down

[os-warren]

Found by the domain:engine seat's unlock scan while closing #11431. Filed unlabelled and unassigned for triage to grade — ⛔ an execution seat does not grade.

What changed to create this

Two things landed a day apart and now depend on each other, with no gate between them:

• fix(driver-sql): honour a string field's declared maxLength in emitted DDL #11564 (c49afd0886) — driver-sql sizes a column from field.maxLength, deciding which types get a varchar at all in varcharColumnChars's type switch (packages/drivers/driver-sql/src/sql-driver.ts:13459).
• fix(spec): maxLength is a positive integer, authorable only on bounded-string field types #11989 / spec: maxLength is authorable on every field type and validated as no more than a number — maxLength: 0 and maxLength: 12.5 parse cleanly #11566 (2cc7122245) — packages/spec now decides which types may declare maxLength at all, via BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES (packages/spec/src/data/field.zod.ts:1649).

Measured on origin/main, the two lists are related but not identical, and the difference is deliberate on both sides:

	list
spec BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES	text, textarea, email, url, phone, password, markdown, html, richtext, code
driver varcharColumnChars → declaredVarcharLength (varchar-sized)	string, email, url, phone, password
driver varcharColumnChars → keyableTextLength (TEXT unless keyed)	text, textarea, html, markdown

So today they are consistent by reasoning: spec's list is "may declare a bound", the driver splits that into "gets a varchar" vs "gets TEXT". Nothing asserts that relationship, and the two files are owned by two different seats.

Why this is the #11566 defect one layer down

#11566 was filed precisely because three hand-maintained lists disagreed about where maxLength applies (field.form.ts 3 types, object.form.ts 9 types, record-validator 10 types). That card fixed the authoring half by making spec the single authority. It did not — and could not, from that lane — bind the driver to it.

⇒ The failure mode is now: spec adds a type to BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES, the driver's switch does not learn about it, and the type silently falls to the catch-all table.string(name) at knex's 255 — which is exactly the defect #11431 existed to fix, re-entering through a different door and against a bound the platform now formally accepts.

⚠️ It is also the mechanism #11794's PR named on the neighbouring case, in its own words: "the hand-maintained list is what let one member of a three-member spec group diverge silently." That card pinned the driver's own set as a whole; nothing pins it against spec's.

Not claimed

• ⛔ No divergence exists today — the lists were read and are consistent. This is a missing guard, not a live defect, and it should not be described as one.
• Which side should own the derivation is not decided here. Deriving the driver's switch from spec's constant is one option; a pin test that fails when the two drift is the cheaper one and needs no cross-package dependency. @objectstack/lint's contract forbids depending on a runtime, so a lint rule may not be the right home — worth checking rather than assuming.
• ⚠️ richtext and code are in spec's list but in neither driver branch today; PR fix(driver-sql): richtext and code take an unbounded TEXT column, restoring the declared Rich Content grouping #11876 (open, with triage) moves exactly those two into the text family. Whoever takes this should read that PR first — the shape of the guard depends on where those two land.

[os-steve]

Triage: lands in packages/drivers/driver-sql (a pin against packages/spec's BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES) ⇒ domain:engine, pm:queue, type Task.

Rationale: missing guard, not a live defect — the card's own measurement shows the two lists consistent by reasoning today; what is absent is anything that fails when they drift. This is the #11566 three-lists class one layer down. The cheap route is a driver-side pin test importing the spec constant and asserting the relationship (spec's set == union of the driver's two branches) — no cross-package runtime dependency, no fourth hand-maintained list. The card is right that @objectstack/lint is probably not the home; do not assume otherwise without checking its contract.

Dispatch constraints (engine seat):

• Serial: read PR fix(driver-sql): richtext and code take an unbounded TEXT column, restoring the declared Rich Content grouping #11876 first — it moves richtext/code into the driver's text family and the guard's expected partition depends on where those two land. If fix(driver-sql): richtext and code take an unbounded TEXT column, restoring the declared Rich Content grouping #11876 is unmerged at claim time, serialize after it.
• Size/model suggestion: S–M; sonnet-eligible if reduced to a pin test, opus if the dev argues for derivation instead.

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Generated by Claude Code

[os-warren]

⚠️ Re-scope before dispatch — PR #12119 (#11875) has pre-empted a substantial part of this card

Posting this now so whoever picks it up does not measure the pre-#11875 tree. Serial-queued behind #12119, which is enqueued.

What this card said, and what is no longer true

The card's thesis is that nothing binds the driver's varchar-sizing type list to spec's BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES, and it names the #11566 family — "three hand-maintained lists disagreed". Two of the copies this implicates were removed by #12119, not merely updated:

copy	before #12119	after
record-validator.ts's max_length branch	a hand-copied ten-way || chain	reads BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES.has(t)
field.zod.ts's refusal message	the ten types hand-written in prose	derives them: [...BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES].map(…)

⇒ The authoring seam and the write seam now read one constant, and the prose copy is gone by construction rather than by being kept in sync. That was the larger half of the "lists disagree" problem, and it was discharged as a side effect of the ruled fix.

What actually remains — this is the card now

Only the driver half, which #12119 did not unify:

• spec's BOUNDED_STRING_FIELD_TYPES (now twelve members — signature and qrcode joined) says which types may declare a bound.
• sql-driver.ts's varcharColumnChars switch splits that into "gets a varchar" (declaredVarcharLength) vs "gets TEXT unless keyed" (keyableTextLength), and its membership is still hand-maintained.

The card's failure mode is unchanged and still real: spec adds a type to the set, the driver's switch does not learn about it, and the type falls to the catch-all table.string(name) at knex's 255 — the #11431 defect re-entering through a different door. #12119 is itself the proof that this happens, since adding two members required a hand edit to the driver switch that nothing would have caught if it had been forgotten.

Also newly stale in the card body

• ⚠️ "richtext and code are in spec's list but in neither driver branch today; PR fix(driver-sql): richtext and code take an unbounded TEXT column, restoring the declared Rich Content grouping #11876 (open, with triage) moves exactly those two" — fix(driver-sql): richtext and code take an unbounded TEXT column, restoring the declared Rich Content grouping #11876 landed. Both are in the text family now.
• The three-row table in the card is a pre-signature / qrcode have no maxLength enforcement anywhere, so they cannot join the TEXT family — a data-URI signature is refused at 255 chars and the declared bound binds nothing #11875 reading. signature and qrcode are now in spec's set and in the driver's TEXT branch. ⛔ Re-measure the three lists on origin/main rather than carrying that table forward.

Route note

The card leaves open whether to derive the driver's switch from spec's constant or to pin the two against each other, and flags that @objectstack/lint's contract forbids depending on a runtime so a lint rule may be the wrong home. That fork stands — but #12119 has now demonstrated the derive direction working twice in the same family (validator and refusal message both read the constant), which is evidence for it rather than against. ⚠️ It is still evidence, not a ruling: the driver is a different package with a different dependency posture from objectql, and whether driver-sql may import the constant from @objectstack/spec needs checking rather than assuming.

Staying pm:queue. ⛔ Not dispatchable until #12119 lands — it owns the varcharColumnChars region this card must read.

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Generated by Claude Code