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feat(ipa): Sharpen side-effect prohibition and require object response bodies in IPA-103 and IPA-004 #58

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AgustinBettati merged 1 commit into from
Jun 15, 2026
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feat(ipa): Sharpen side-effect prohibition and require object response bodies in IPA-103 and IPA-004 #58

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8 changes: 5 additions & 3 deletions ipa/general/0004.md
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Expand Up @@ -48,9 +48,11 @@ To learn more, see [IPA-127](0127.md).

### Side Effects

Side effects are those operations that may create or update resources unrelated
to the original request, for example, a create operation that also updates a
parent resource state.
Side effects are operations that create, update, or delete resources — or mutate
[client-owned fields](0111.md#single-owner-fields) of a resource — unrelated to
the target of the original request. For example, a create operation that also
updates a parent resource's configuration, or an update on resource X that
silently rewrites client-owned fields on resource Y.

### Governing API body

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22 changes: 22 additions & 0 deletions ipa/general/0103.md
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Expand Up @@ -17,6 +17,15 @@ that a service can perform on behalf of the consumer.
- Standard methods **must not** cause side effects
- In such scenarios where a side effect is necessary, a custom method
**should** be used
- A side effect specifically includes mutating
[client-owned fields](0111.md#single-owner-fields) of any resource other
than the target of the request. The dependent mutation **must** be performed
through the dependent resource's own endpoint; if the operation is
fundamentally multi-resource by design, it **must** be modeled as a custom
method per the rule above.
- Side effects limited to read-only or
[effective values](0111.md#effective-values) of another resource **may**
occur in standard methods.
- Standard methods **must** guarantee
[atomicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomicity_%28database_systems%29)
- In cases where atomicity cannot be guaranteed, consider in the following
Expand All @@ -36,6 +45,19 @@ Selecting a custom method may be valuable for:
- If atomic modifications are required when adding or removing from repeated
fields

### Response bodies

- Every endpoint **must** support a versioned JSON content type (e.g.
`application/vnd.atlas.YYYY-MM-DD+json`), per [IPA-900](../sdks/0900.md).
Additional content types (e.g. `+csv`) **may** be offered alongside JSON.
- When a response body is returned as a JSON content type, it **must** be a JSON
object with a fixed set of named properties at the root.
- Top-level arrays, primitives, or objects with dynamic (unknown) keys at the
root are prohibited because they cannot be consistently typed by
schema-based clients and tooling.
- Collections **must** be wrapped in an envelope object per [IPA-110](0110.md)
(e.g. `{"results": [...], "links": [...], "totalCount": 42}`).

### Naming

- The method name is the
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