vyndr/DECISIONS.md

BetonBLK — Architecture Decisions

Format

Each decision follows this structure:

• DECISION-[NNN]: [Title]
• Date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
• Context: [Why this decision was needed]
• Decision: [What was decided]
• Alternatives considered: [What else was on the table]
• Consequences: [What this means going forward]

Decisions

DECISION-001: Odds API Raw Response Format (Feature 1.1)

• Date: 2026-03-21
• Context: Needed to verify actual Odds API response shape before writing normalizer. Made live test calls to /v4/sports/basketball_nba/events and /v4/sports/basketball_nba/events/{id}/odds.

Raw response structure (verified):

Event level:
  - id: "a1158df1a3a21def58491807df167c6a"
  - home_team: "Washington Wizards" (FULL NAME, not abbreviation)
  - away_team: "Oklahoma City Thunder"
  - commence_time: "2026-03-21T21:10:00Z" (ISO 8601 UTC)

Bookmaker level (nested under event.bookmakers[]):
  - key: "fanduel" | "draftkings" | "betmgm"
  - title: "FanDuel" | "DraftKings" (human-readable)

Market level (nested under bookmaker.markets[]):
  - key: "player_points" (matches our expected market keys)
  - last_update: "2026-03-21T12:17:04Z" (ISO 8601 UTC)

Outcome level (nested under market.outcomes[]):
  - name: "Over" | "Under"
  - description: "Shai Gilgeous-Alexander" (FULL PLAYER NAME)
  - price: -110 (American odds, integer)
  - point: 28.5 (the line)

Key findings:

1. Team names are full names ("Washington Wizards"), NOT 3-letter abbreviations. We need a mapping table.
2. Player names are in description field, full names.
3. Over/Under for the same player+line appear as separate outcome objects. Must pair them.
4. The API does NOT tell us which team a player belongs to. We only know home_team/away_team for the event. Player-to-team assignment requires roster data (Feature 1.2).
5. markets param accepts comma-separated values — can fetch all 8 prop markets in one API call per event.

Quota headers (verified):

• x-requests-used: cumulative credits used this month

• x-requests-remaining: credits left

• x-requests-last: credits consumed by this specific call (was 1)

• Decision:

  1. Build a static NBA team name → 3-letter abbreviation mapping in utils.
  2. Normalizer must pair Over/Under outcomes by player name + point value.
  3. For Feature 1.1, set team to the full team name from the event. Player-to-team resolution deferred to Feature 1.2 integration.
  4. Fetch all markets in a single call per event to conserve credits.
  5. Use on-demand fetching only (not polling) — fetch from API only when a user request hits and cache is cold.

• Alternatives considered:

  • Could skip team abbreviations entirely — rejected because downstream features (Prop Engine, UI) need short team identifiers.
  • Could try to resolve player→team via external lookup now — rejected because Feature 1.2 will provide this natively.

• Consequences:

  • Need src/utils/teamMap.js with full name → abbreviation mapping.
  • Normalizer groups Over+Under outcomes by description + point.
  • Credit budget: ~1 credit per event per refresh. With 15-min cache + on-demand only, budget stays within 500/month for typical usage.

DECISION-002: Credit Conservation Strategy (Feature 1.1)

• Date: 2026-03-21
• Context: Starter plan = 500 credits/month. Player props require per-event API calls (sport-level endpoint only supports main markets). ~10 NBA games/day.
• Decision: On-demand fetching only. Never poll. Cache aggressively at 15-min TTL. Batch all markets into one call per event. For a full NBA slate, one refresh = ~10 credits. At 15-min cache, even heavy usage stays under budget.
• Alternatives considered: Background polling every 15 min — rejected, would burn ~480 credits per game day.
• Consequences: First request after cache expires will be slower (live API call). Acceptable tradeoff for free tier.

DECISION-003: Python Microservice for nba_api (Feature 1.2)

• Date: 2026-03-21
• Context: nba_api is a Python library. Backend is Node.js/Express. Need a bridge.
• Decision: FastAPI microservice. Node calls it via internal HTTP. Python stays idiomatic, caching strategy (24hr season averages, 1hr recent games) lives in the Python service with its own Redis connection.
• Alternatives considered:
  • Python child process (Node spawns python3, parses stdout) — rejected: cold start on every call, awkward error handling.
  • Pre-fetch cron (Python writes to Redis on schedule, Node reads) — rejected: more moving parts, stale data risk.
• Consequences: Two processes to run (Node + Python). Need a startup script or docker-compose. Internal port convention: Node on 3000, Python on 8000.

DECISION-004: Supabase Auth + RLS (Feature 1.4)

• Date: 2026-03-21
• Context: Need auth provider for user system. Supabase already in stack.
• Decision: Supabase Auth. RLS enabled at project level. Our users table extends auth.users via FK on id. All tables use RLS policies scoped to auth.uid().
• Alternatives considered:
  • Clerk — better DX but adds a vendor, costs more at scale.
  • Auth-agnostic (own users table, plug in later) — rejected: delays RLS setup, more migration work later.
• Consequences: All table access goes through RLS. Service role key bypasses RLS for admin/backend operations. Anon key used for client-side auth flows.