Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Email is absolutely something that requires idempotence to avoid sending duplicates. Even if your code is perfect and you don't send emails until after you commit your transaction, the actual http request to the email provider could fail in a way where the email is sent but your system can't tell.

Idempotency (either via a token in the request, or another API to check the result of the previous request) is required to prevent duplicates. And this requires the third party service to support idempotency; there's nothing you can do on your side to enable it if their service doesn't support it.



What if your system is the one actually sending the emails (ie, you are the 3rd party in this scenario)




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: