Document service interfaces and integration contracts
epic-bufdir-reporting-export-processing-services-task-018 — Write developer documentation for all five processing services covering: service interface definitions with parameter descriptions, data flow diagrams showing how activity data transforms through query → column mapping → file generation → bundling → delivery, error handling contracts, and integration guide for the orchestrator epic. Include code examples for each service's primary use case.
Acceptance Criteria
Technical Requirements
Execution Context
Tier 5 - 253 tasks
Can start after Tier 4 completes
Implementation Notes
Structure the documentation file as follows: (1) Overview — purpose of the epic, Bufdir reporting context, pipeline summary; (2) Data Flow Diagram — Mermaid sequenceDiagram or flowchart showing the 5-stage pipeline; (3) Service Reference sections (one per service) — interface definition, parameters, return values, error handling, code example; (4) Integration Guide — complete orchestrator pattern showing services wired together; (5) Error Handling Reference — consolidated table of all exceptions across services. For code examples, use realistic but synthetic data (no real org names). Mermaid is preferred over ASCII for diagrams as it renders natively in GitHub and most documentation platforms. When documenting error contracts, distinguish between recoverable errors (e.g., missing attachment → logged, excluded) and fatal errors (e.g., database connection failure → exception propagated).
The integration guide example should mirror the pattern the orchestrator epic will actually use — coordinate with the orchestrator epic author to ensure alignment before finalizing.
Testing Requirements
No automated tests required for documentation tasks. Manual review checklist: (1) verify all public method signatures match current source code; (2) confirm code examples compile without errors by running dart analyze on snippets; (3) confirm Mermaid diagram renders correctly in GitHub Markdown preview; (4) peer review by one other developer who was not the author to confirm clarity and completeness.
NHF contacts can belong to up to five local chapters simultaneously. If the deduplication logic in the activity query service incorrectly attributes cross-chapter activities, organisations will either under-report or over-report to Bufdir, which could trigger grant clawback or compliance investigations.
Mitigation & Contingency
Mitigation: Implement deduplication using the existing multi-chapter membership service as the source of truth for chapter affiliation. Write test fixtures covering all known multi-chapter edge cases and validate outputs against manually prepared reference exports from NHF.
Contingency: If deduplication cannot be made deterministic for complex hierarchies before release, gate the export behind an org-level feature flag and require NHF to validate a preview export against their manual Excel before enabling in production.
Server-side Dart libraries for Excel generation are less mature than equivalents in Node.js or Python. The chosen library may lack support for Bufdir-required formatting features (merged cells, data validation, specific date formats), requiring significant workaround effort or a library switch mid-implementation.
Mitigation & Contingency
Mitigation: Evaluate the top two Dart xlsx libraries (excel, spreadsheet_decoder) against a Bufdir template sample file before committing. Identify all required formatting features and verify library support in a spike.
Contingency: If no Dart library meets requirements, implement the Excel generation as a Supabase Edge Function in TypeScript using the well-supported ExcelJS library, exposing it to the Dart backend via an internal RPC call.
The attachment bundler must retrieve documents from Supabase Storage that were uploaded by the document attachments feature. If storage paths, RLS policies, or signed URL expiry have not been standardised across features, the bundler may fail to retrieve attachments at export time.
Mitigation & Contingency
Mitigation: Audit the document attachments feature's storage schema and RLS policies before implementing the bundler. Agree on a stable internal service-account access pattern for cross-feature storage reads.
Contingency: If cross-feature storage access cannot be made reliable, implement the bundler to include only attachments that can be retrieved successfully and produce a manifest listing any attachments that could not be bundled, rather than failing the entire export.