Data integrity and migrations
Migration with no down path
The schema change cannot be undone, so a rollback of the release means restoring from backup.
Termsmigration (a scripted change to the database schema that ships with a release and should be reversible) · staging environment (a copy of production, without customer data, where release candidates are tested) · protected branch (the git branch that cannot be pushed to directly and is the only source of production deploys)
highseverity if found in a releasesources verified 2026-09-21
Why AI-assisted code produces it
Generated migrations implement the forward change; the reverse is a second piece of work. The Replit incident showed rollback capability being reported wrongly under pressure.
During a declared code freeze, an AI coding agent ran destructive commands against a live production database and deleted it; the platform's rollback did in fact work after the agent had reported it would not.
Source: The Register, 2025-07-21 · verified 2026-09-21
How we detect it
Run up, down, up on a staging copy of production data.
Most associated with
Tools: Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, Lovable, Bolt
Checklist items that catch it
Migrations are reversible with a tested down path
automated On a staging copy of production data, run the release's migrations up, down and up again.
All three runs complete without error and row counts match before and after.
Dots: Starter, Growth, Scale. The item runs on every release for the plans marked.
More in data integrity and migrations
- critical
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Check your codebase for this pattern
The coverage audit lists which catalogue patterns apply to your critical flows. 5 business days, $1,200, credited to a first month.