field-mapping-improvements.md•15.1 kB
# Field Mapping Improvements (Issue #473)
This document describes the comprehensive field mapping improvements implemented to resolve inconsistencies in update operations, including category validation, special character handling, and response normalization.
## Table of Contents
- [Overview](#overview)
- [Fixed Field Mappings](#fixed-field-mappings)
- [Category Validation System](#category-validation-system)
- [Special Character Handling](#special-character-handling)
- [Field Persistence Verification](#field-persistence-verification)
- [Response Normalization](#response-normalization)
- [Migration Guide](#migration-guide)
- [Examples](#examples)
## Overview
Issue #473 addressed critical field mapping inconsistencies that caused:
- Field updates not persisting after save operations
- Fields mapping to incorrect attributes
- Inconsistent behavior across different object types
- GET operations returning different data than what was updated
- Special character corruption in field content
### Key Improvements
1. **Corrected Field Mappings**: Fixed incorrect mappings like `employee_count → estimated_arr`
2. **Category Validation**: Added comprehensive validation with fuzzy matching for company categories
3. **Special Character Preservation**: Implemented sanitization while preserving user intent
4. **Response Normalization**: Standardized response formats across all resource types
5. **Field Persistence Verification**: Added verification to ensure updates persist correctly
## Fixed Field Mappings
### Before (Incorrect Mappings)
```typescript
// Previous incorrect mapping
const fieldMappings = {
employee_count: 'estimated_arr', // ❌ Wrong mapping
// ... other mappings
};
```
### After (Corrected Mappings)
```typescript
// Corrected field mappings
const FIELD_MAPPINGS = {
companies: {
// employee_count now maps to itself (correct)
employee_count: 'employee_count', // ✅ Correct mapping
size: 'estimated_arr', // ✅ Size correctly maps to estimated_arr
domain: 'domains',
website: 'domains',
url: 'domains',
// ... other mappings
}
};
```
### Impact
- **Data Integrity**: Employee count updates now persist correctly
- **Field Collision Prevention**: Eliminated conflicts between employee_count and size fields
- **Consistent Behavior**: GET and POST operations now return consistent data
## Category Validation System
### Features
The new category validation system includes:
1. **String-to-Array Auto-Conversion**: Automatically converts single category strings to arrays
2. **Fuzzy Matching**: Uses Levenshtein distance to suggest corrections for typos
3. **Case-Insensitive Validation**: Accepts input in any case, returns canonical casing
4. **Comprehensive Error Messages**: Provides helpful "Did you mean?" suggestions
### Usage Examples
```javascript
// ✅ Single string auto-converted to array
const result1 = await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
categories: 'Technology' // Auto-converted to ['Technology']
}
});
// ✅ Array of categories validated
const result2 = await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
categories: ['Technology', 'Software', 'SaaS']
}
});
// ✅ Case-insensitive with canonical casing
const result3 = await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
categories: 'technology' // Returns ['Technology']
}
});
```
### Error Handling with Suggestions
```javascript
// ❌ Typo in category name
try {
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
categories: 'Tecnology' // Typo
}
});
} catch (error) {
// Error message: "Invalid category 'Tecnology'. Did you mean 'Technology'?"
console.error(error.message);
}
```
### Valid Categories List
The system validates against 35+ predefined categories including:
```javascript
const VALID_CATEGORIES = [
'Technology', 'Software', 'SaaS', 'Health Care', 'Financial Services',
'Manufacturing', 'E-commerce', 'Education', 'Construction', 'Automotive',
'Real Estate', 'Media', 'Telecommunications', 'Energy', 'Transportation',
'Food & Beverage', 'Travel & Tourism', 'Entertainment', 'Sports',
'Non-profit', 'Government', 'Legal', 'Consulting', 'Marketing',
'Retail', 'Wholesale', 'Logistics', 'Insurance', 'Banking',
'Investment', 'Biotechnology', 'Pharmaceuticals', 'Agriculture',
'Mining', 'Utilities', 'Finance', 'B2B', 'B2C'
];
```
## Special Character Handling
### Preserved Characters
The system now properly preserves:
- **Quotes and Apostrophes**: `"`, `'`, `"`, `'`
- **HTML Entities**: `&`, `<`, `>`, `"`, `'`
- **Unicode Characters**: International text, emojis, symbols
- **Whitespace**: Newlines (`\n`), tabs (`\t`), spaces
- **Special Symbols**: `@`, `#`, `$`, `%`, `&`, `*`, etc.
### Examples
```javascript
// ✅ Quotes and apostrophes preserved
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
name: `O'Reilly Media & "Tech" Solutions`,
description: `Company with O'Brien's "special" quotes`
}
});
// ✅ Unicode and emoji support
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
name: 'Tech Company 🚀 Innovation',
description: 'We build 💻 solutions with ❤️'
}
});
// ✅ Multiline content with tabs
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
description: 'Line 1\nLine 2\tTabbed content\nLine 3'
}
});
```
### Sanitization Process
The system applies **safe sanitization** that:
1. Preserves all user-intended special characters
2. Maintains formatting (newlines, tabs, etc.)
3. Protects against potential injection while preserving content
4. Ensures consistent encoding across all resource types
## Field Persistence Verification
### Overview
Automatic verification ensures that field updates actually persist in the system by:
1. Performing the update operation
2. Fetching the updated record
3. Comparing expected vs actual values
4. Reporting any discrepancies
### Configuration
```javascript
// Enable field persistence verification
process.env.ENABLE_FIELD_VERIFICATION = 'true';
// Skip verification in test environments
process.env.SKIP_FIELD_VERIFICATION = 'true';
```
### Verification Process
```javascript
// Automatic verification flow
const result = await UniversalUpdateService.updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: { name: 'Updated Name', employee_count: 150 }
});
// System automatically:
// 1. Updates the record
// 2. Fetches updated record to verify persistence
// 3. Compares expected vs actual values
// 4. Reports any mismatches in warnings/errors
```
### Verification Results
```javascript
// Successful verification
{
verified: true,
discrepancies: [],
warnings: []
}
// Failed verification
{
verified: false,
discrepancies: [
'Field "employee_count" persistence mismatch: expected 150, got 100'
],
warnings: [
'Some fields may not have persisted correctly'
]
}
```
## Response Normalization
### Consistent Response Format
All update operations now return a standardized `AttioRecord` format:
```typescript
interface AttioRecord {
id: {
record_id: string;
object_id: string; // Added for consistency
task_id?: string; // For tasks
list_id?: string; // For lists
};
values: Record<string, unknown>;
created_at?: string; // Added when available
updated_at?: string; // Added for tracking
}
```
### Before and After
**Before (Inconsistent)**:
```javascript
// Different response formats across resource types
const companyResult = { id: { record_id: 'comp_123' }, values: {...} };
const taskResult = { id: { task_id: 'task_123' }, content: '...' };
const listResult = { id: { list_id: 'list_123' }, name: '...' };
```
**After (Normalized)**:
```javascript
// Consistent AttioRecord format
const companyResult = {
id: { record_id: 'comp_123', object_id: 'companies' },
values: { name: 'Company Name', employee_count: 150 },
created_at: '2024-01-01T00:00:00Z',
updated_at: '2024-01-15T10:30:00Z'
};
const taskResult = {
id: { record_id: 'task_123', task_id: 'task_123', object_id: 'tasks' },
values: { content: 'Task Content', title: 'Task Content' }, // Issue #480 compatibility
created_at: '2024-01-01T00:00:00Z',
updated_at: '2024-01-15T10:30:00Z'
};
```
### Resource-Specific Normalization
Each resource type has specialized normalization:
```javascript
// Companies: domains converted to arrays
{
values: {
name: 'Company Name',
domains: ['example.com'], // Always array
categories: ['Technology'] // Always array
}
}
// People: email_addresses and phone_numbers as arrays
{
values: {
name: 'John Doe',
email_addresses: ['john@example.com'], // Always array
phone_numbers: ['+1234567890'] // Always array
}
}
// Tasks: dual field support for Issue #480 compatibility
{
values: {
content: 'Task description',
title: 'Task description' // Duplicate for compatibility
}
}
```
## Migration Guide
### Updating Code for New Field Mappings
**Before**:
```javascript
// Old code expecting employee_count to map to estimated_arr
await updateCompany(id, {
employee_count: 100, // This would incorrectly map to estimated_arr
size: 'Large' // This would conflict
});
```
**After**:
```javascript
// New code with correct mappings
await updateCompany(id, {
employee_count: 100, // ✅ Maps to employee_count field
size: 'Large' // ✅ Maps to estimated_arr field (no conflict)
});
```
### Handling Categories
**Before**:
```javascript
// Manual category handling
await updateCompany(id, {
categories: ['Technology'] // Had to provide as array
});
```
**After**:
```javascript
// Auto-conversion support
await updateCompany(id, {
categories: 'Technology' // ✅ Auto-converted to ['Technology']
});
// Or still use arrays
await updateCompany(id, {
categories: ['Technology', 'Software'] // ✅ Still works
});
```
### Response Format Updates
**Before**:
```javascript
// Responses varied by resource type
const result = await updateRecord({...});
// result.id might have different properties
// result.values might be at different levels
```
**After**:
```javascript
// Consistent response format
const result = await updateRecord({...});
// Always has: result.id.record_id, result.id.object_id
// Always has: result.values (normalized structure)
// May have: result.created_at, result.updated_at
```
## Examples
### Complete Update with All Features
```javascript
const result = await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
name: 'O\'Reilly Media & "Tech" Solutions 🚀',
employee_count: 250, // Correct field mapping
categories: 'Technology', // Auto-converted to array
description: 'Multi-line\ndescription\twith\tspecial chars',
website: 'https://oreilly.com',
industry: 'Software & Media'
}
});
// Normalized response
console.log(result);
// {
// id: {
// record_id: 'comp_123',
// object_id: 'companies'
// },
// values: {
// name: 'O\'Reilly Media & "Tech" Solutions 🚀',
// employee_count: 250,
// categories: ['Technology'],
// description: 'Multi-line\ndescription\twith\tspecial chars',
// domains: ['https://oreilly.com'],
// industry: 'Software & Media'
// },
// updated_at: '2024-01-15T10:30:00Z'
// }
```
### Error Handling with Improved Messages
```javascript
try {
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
categories: 'Tecnology', // Typo
employee_count: 'not_a_number' // Wrong type
}
});
} catch (error) {
console.error(error.message);
// "Invalid category 'Tecnology'. Did you mean 'Technology'?"
// "Field validation failed: employee_count must be a number"
}
```
### Field Collision Prevention
```javascript
// ❌ Before: This would cause field collision
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
employee_count: 100, // Would map to estimated_arr (wrong)
size: 'Large' // Would also map to estimated_arr (collision)
}
});
// ✅ After: No collision, correct mappings
await updateRecord({
resource_type: 'companies',
record_id: 'comp_123',
record_data: {
employee_count: 100, // Maps to employee_count (correct)
size: 'Large' // Maps to estimated_arr (correct)
}
});
```
## Testing
### Comprehensive Test Coverage
The improvements include extensive test coverage:
1. **Unit Tests**: Field mapping validation, category validation, special character handling
2. **Integration Tests**: Real API validation, end-to-end workflows
3. **QA Tests**: Complete Issue #473 scenario validation
4. **Regression Tests**: Prevent reintroduction of mapping issues
### Running Tests
```bash
# Run all tests related to field mapping
npm test test/unit/category-validation.test.ts
npm test test/integration/special-character-handling.test.ts
npm test test/integration/issue-473-comprehensive-qa.test.ts
# Run specific field collision tests
npm test test/unit/field-collision-detection.test.ts
# Run full test suite
npm test
```
## Best Practices
1. **Use Auto-Conversion**: Take advantage of category string-to-array conversion
2. **Validate Input**: Let the system validate categories and provide suggestions
3. **Preserve Characters**: Don't pre-sanitize special characters, let the system handle it
4. **Monitor Verification**: Enable field persistence verification in development
5. **Handle Errors**: Implement proper error handling for validation failures
## Troubleshooting
### Common Issues
1. **Category Validation Errors**
```
Error: Invalid category "Healthcare". Did you mean "Health Care"?
```
**Solution**: Use the suggested category name or check valid categories list
2. **Field Collision Detected**
```
Error: Field collision detected: "domain", "website" all map to "domains"
```
**Solution**: Use only one field that maps to the target, prefer the canonical field name
3. **Special Characters Lost**
```
Expected: O'Reilly & "Tech"
Got: OReilly Tech
```
**Solution**: Update to latest version with special character preservation
### Getting Help
- Check the [Troubleshooting Guide](../universal-tools/troubleshooting.md)
- Review test cases for examples
- Create an issue with reproduction steps
## See Also
- [Universal Tools API Reference](../universal-tools/api-reference.md)
- [Field Validation Rules](./field-validation-rules.md)
- [Category Validation Tests](../../test/unit/category-validation.test.ts)
- [Issue #473 Implementation](https://github.com/kesslerio/attio-mcp-server/pull/505)