---
id: ACTIVITY-WP-0033
type: workplan
title: "Bound SBOM catch-up across Temporal retries"
domain: infotech
repo: activity-core
status: finished
owner: codex
topic_slug: infotech
created: "2026-08-22"
updated: "2026-08-22"
related:
  - ACTIVITY-WP-0030
  - CUST-WP-0062
  - SBOM-WP-0002
state_hub_workstream_id: "6f106471-010d-5039-9779-d3d630693827"
---

# Bound SBOM catch-up across Temporal retries

## Goal

Preserve ACTIVITY-WP-0030's oldest-N bound when Temporal retries an activity or
an SBOM Nexus response is ambiguous. Activity Core can independently guarantee
that one workflow fire retains one fixed set of at most N distinct repository
targets. Exact once-only snapshot creation remains a Nexus-side idempotency
follow-up.

## Separate selection from mutation

```task
id: ACTIVITY-WP-0033-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "c6cd06d6-6cde-50a3-8b66-e930b228579d"
```

Keep `resolve_context` and the `sbom-nexus / catch_up` resolver read-only even
when the definition declares `apply: true`. Compute the deterministic run id
before context resolution, then pass the already-truncated selection to a
dedicated Temporal activity. Retries must reuse that same selection rather than
querying the next batch.

## Resume bounded outcomes safely

```task
id: ACTIVITY-WP-0033-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "b85a95c4-ce57-5bcd-ae7c-50e5defcd0f1"
```

Heartbeat completed per-repository outcomes so an ordinary activity retry does
not repeat acknowledged targets. Send a stable per-run/per-repository
`Idempotency-Key` for forward compatibility with Nexus enforcement. Never turn
an HTTP timeout, transport error, or malformed success response into a second
synthetic skip: the result is ambiguous and must fail visibly against the same
fixed target set.

## Verification and handoff

```task
id: ACTIVITY-WP-0033-T03
status: done
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "bc16f4af-48dd-513a-9fa8-78f322cbdaef"
```

Cover read-only selection, fixed-target retry, heartbeat resume, duplicate
target collapse, stable request identity, and ambiguous-response behavior.
Update the runbook and hand the remaining exactly-once enforcement requirement
to SBOM Nexus without claiming it is solved locally.

Completed 2026-08-22. `resolve_context` now only selects and normalises a
deduplicated oldest-N set. `RunActivityWorkflow` records that selection before
calling the registered `apply_sbom_catchup` activity, protected by Temporal
patch marker `activity-wp-0033-sbom-retry-boundary`. The apply activity resumes
terminal outcomes from heartbeat details and sends a deterministic UUID
operation key for each workflow-run/repository pair. Ambiguous HTTP and
contract failures remain failures against the same fixed target instead of
creating `ingest-error` skip snapshots.

Verification: 27 focused SBOM tests and 417 repository tests passed; the one
live NATS-to-Temporal bridge test was deselected because it requires the local
integration stack. Python compilation and `git diff --check` also passed.

## Acceptance

- [x] Context resolution performs no SBOM mutation
- [x] One workflow fire retains at most N distinct targets across retries
- [x] Heartbeat replay skips outcomes already acknowledged by the activity
- [x] Ambiguous ingest responses do not create synthetic skip snapshots
- [x] Stable operation identity is sent for future Nexus enforcement
- [x] Focused and repository-wide Activity Core verification pass