.tip

Jun 16, 2026 · one of the small things

Put the API version in the path

A version in a header is invisible in logs, in browser dev tools, in curl by default, and in every link anyone pastes into a ticket. /v2/orders is visible in all of them.

GET /v1/orders   → old shape, kept alive with a sunset date
GET /v2/orders   → new shape

Send Deprecation and Sunset headers on the old one, with a date, so clients get a warning a machine can read.

httpapi-design

~/tips/today — 2026-10-19

~cat tips/today

Never build an index on a live table without CONCURRENTLY

postgresqlmigrations

A plain CREATE INDEX takes a lock that blocks every write to the table for the whole build. On a big table that means minutes of outage that look like a hung app.

CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY orders_customer_idx ON orders (customer_id);

It's slower and can't run inside a transaction, so you'll have to tell your migration tool. If it fails halfway, it leaves an invalid index behind, so check pg_index.indisvalid and drop it before you retry.

↵ open y yesterday l ls /tips

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