/plushcap/analysis/authzed/authzed-the-day-benjamin-franklin-broke-our-ci

The Day Benjamin Franklin Broke our CI

What's this blog post about?

The text narrates an interesting incident where a test suite for the open-source permissions database, SpiceDB, started failing after Daylight Saving Time ended. The failure was traced back to a MySQL query that checks if a revision is still valid by comparing its timestamp with the current time within a specified window. Due to the change in Daylight Saving Time, the test's configured window accidentally matched the new timezone delta from UTC, causing the revision to be considered out of date by milliseconds. The issue was resolved by isolating the test that changes the timezone and ensuring it runs against an independent instance of MySQL. This incident highlights how Daylight Saving Time can cause unexpected bugs in software systems and emphasizes the importance of a systematic approach to debugging.

Company
AuthZed

Date published
Nov. 7, 2024

Author(s)
Joey Schorr

Word count
1730

Language
English

Hacker News points
None found.


By Matt Makai. 2021-2024.