holy-flavor-rater/audit.md

Holy Flavor Rater — Audit

Scope: backend-rs/ (Rust/Axum/SeaORM) + frontend/ (React 19/MUI 7). Django backend excluded (legacy data dir). Findings ordered by impact within each area.

Robustness

R1. Notification text is hardcoded English (DE locale shows mixed languages)

App.tsx:183-189 and NavSidebar.tsx:445-451 hardcode replied to your review on, mentioned you on, left a message on your guestbook as template literals while sibling notif types use t(...). German users get a mixed-language menu. Fix: move to i18n keys with interpolation, e.g. t('community.notifReply', { flavor: n.flavor_name }).

R2. Full page reload on notification click

App.tsx:104 and NavSidebar.tsx:83 use window.location.href = '/flavor/${id}' instead of navigate(). Kills SPA state, refetches everything, white flash. Other branches use navigate() — inconsistent. Fix: navigate(path); if same-route remount is needed, reset via key/scroll.

R3. Rate limiter fails open and is per-process

throttle.rs is in-memory: login/signup limits reset on restart and don't span instances. Acceptable for the single Rust process today. If ever scaled to 2 instances or frequent deploys, the brute-force window resets each time. Fix (future): DB/Redis-backed counters, or rely on strict nginx limits in front.

R4. refetchUser 60s poll also re-pulls the full following list

AuthContext.tsx:48 — every minute it re-fetches following_list just to refresh the unread badge, which is already on /users/me/. Fix: poll only users/me/; fetch following on login + after follow/unfollow mutations.

Performance

P1. (Biggest) List endpoints ship full nested ratings the UI never reads

build_flavors (service.rs:230) always populates FlavorOut.ratings with full RatingOut objects (comment, avatar URL, category, score…). /flavors/ page size = 50 (pagination.rs:9). FlavorCard (FlavorCard.tsx:10-18) consumes only id/name/image/avg/flags/category — never ratings. Category + main list pages thus transfer 50 flavors × all their ratings as dead JSON.

• Detail view needs ratings. top needs them (MainPage.tsx:98,363). list/newest/category do not. Fix: add include_ratings: bool (mirrors existing include_replies); skip per-rating RatingOut build for list/newest/category while keeping the cheap aggregate pass (avg/distribution). For top's review-count + featured review, keep ratings on top only or add slim review_count/featured_comment fields.

P2. Double average computation in list

flavors.rs:97 orders by AVG(score) in SQL, then build_flavors recomputes avg in Rust. Ordering forces the SQL avg; the win is the P1 payload trim (ratings get fully loaded regardless today).

Code quality

Q1. Notification menu duplicated

Full render + handleNotificationClick logic is copy-pasted in App.tsx:94-205 and NavSidebar.tsx. Two places to fix every notif bug (already bit us: R1 + R2 live in both). Fix: extract <NotificationMenu> + useNotificationClick().

Q2. Categories fetched raw, outside react-query

App.tsx:75-83 uses raw api.get('categories/') in useEffect while everything else uses query hooks. No cache, refetch on every mount, manual array/results juggling. Fix: useCategories() query hook.

Q3. Stale docs / comment mismatch

api.ts:4-7 correctly describes httpOnly-cookie auth, but CLAUDE.md frontend Auth still describes the retired localStorage access/refresh scheme. Fix: update CLAUDE.md frontend Auth paragraph.

Q4. as object cast hack

AuthContext.tsx:40-42 does ...({ skipAuthRedirect: true } as object); the field is already typed in RetriableConfig (api.ts:24). Fix: export that type, drop the cast.

Extendability

E1. Hand-rolled per-field validation

ratings.rs:107-178 (and update :258-321) manually build DRF-shaped field errors. Every new field/endpoint repeats the pattern. Fix: small validation helper (required/int-range/string) returning the field-keyed map.

E2. App-level CASCADE hand-coded per handler

ratings.rs:352-373 collects replies→notifications→replies→rating in a txn. Correct but error-prone as relations grow. Fix (long-term): migration adding ON DELETE CASCADE FKs; short-term centralize collectors in helpers.

UX flow

U1. No optimistic UI on rating/reply submit

Verify mutations invalidateQueries; consider optimistic insert so reviews appear instantly.

U2. Login redirect is a hard reload

Login.tsx:35 + Settings.tsx:185 use window.location.href='/', losing warm react-query cache. Fix: navigate('/') + refetchUser().

U3. Mark-all-read fails silently

NotificationContext.tsx:44-51 swallows errors; badge clears then reappears on next poll if the request failed. Fix: toast on failure (ToastContext exists).

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Implementation status

• Q4 — dropped the as object cast. Exported RetriableConfig from lib/api.ts; AuthContext.refetchUser now passes { skipAuthRedirect: true } as RetriableConfig (the field is part of that type) instead of the ...({ ... } as object) spread hack. tsc + ESLint (0 errors) clean.
• U3 — mark-all-read no longer fails silently. NotificationContext.markAllRead catch block now fires an error toast (community.markAllReadFailed, EN+DE) via useToast().notify instead of swallowing. Root cause was also a provider-order bug: ToastProvider sat inside NotificationProvider, so the context couldn't reach useToast — hoisted ToastProvider above AuthProvider/NotificationProvider in app/providers.tsx (it only needs the MUI theme, which stays outermost). tsc + ESLint (0 errors) clean.
• U2 — killed the hard window.location.href='/' reloads. Login.tsx (post-login) now await refetchUser() + navigate('/'); Settings.tsx (post-account-deletion) queryClient.clear() + await refetchUser() + navigate('/') — deletion wipes the whole react-query cache so no stale user data survives the now-gone account. Both keep the SPA mounted (warm cache, no white flash). tsc + ESLint (0 errors) clean.
• R4 — split refetchUser / refetchFollowing (AuthContext.tsx). The 60s badge poll (NotificationContext.tsx:34) now only hits users/me/; the following list is fetched once on login (effect keyed on user?.username) and cleared on logout. Added refetchFollowing to the context value and call it after follow/unfollow in PublicProfile.tsx (both the main + mini toggles) so the sidebar list updates immediately instead of waiting for the next poll. Drops one following_list GET per minute per logged-in client. tsc + ESLint (0 errors) clean.
• Q2 — useCategories() query hook (api/queries/useCategories.ts, key queryKeys.categories(), 30 min staleTime). Replaced raw api.get('categories/') + useState/useEffect in App.tsx with the hook; dropped the now-unused api import. Cached + shared across mounts. tsc + ESLint (0 errors) clean.
• R1 + R2 + Q1 — notif menu dedup + i18n + SPA nav. Extracted shared <NotificationMenu> (components/layout/NotificationMenu.tsx) + useNotificationClick() hook (hooks/useNotificationClick.ts); App.tsx and NavSidebar.tsx now both render the one component. R1: hardcoded English notif strings moved to i18n keys (community.notifReplyOn/notifMentionOn/notifProfileComment/markAllRead, EN+DE, flavor interpolated). R2: window.location.href → navigate() (no full reload). tsc, ESLint (0 errors), 27 tests, vite build all clean.
• P1 — list payload trim (include_ratings flag). build_flavors now takes include_ratings; the aggregate rollup (avg/followed-avg/distribution/viewer score) always runs, but the per-rating RatingOut vec + rating-author user lookup are skipped when false. Set false on newest, followed_top, and the dashboard's "missing flavors" (loads every unrated flavor — biggest win); kept true on list/top/detail because their UI reads the nested reviews. No frontend change required. cargo fmt/clippy/test clean (20 passed).