fix(bot): reschedule was silently dropped under stately policy

Scheduled reminder for May 10 8:20 PM never fired. Bot logs showed
"reminder.fire: scheduled" with jobId: null at 12:18 UTC — pg-boss
returned null because the queue was on policy=stately, which dedupes
sends across the (created/active/retry) state cone by singletonKey.
A previous schedule for the same reminder (next recurring fire,
created earlier) was still in 'created' state, so the new send for
today 8:20 PM hit the dedupe and was silently rejected.

Two fixes:

  1. Switch the queue policy back to 'standard' (the default) and
     force-flip any existing 'stately' queue row on boot. Standard
     lets us enqueue across reschedules.
  2. scheduleReminderFire now does a pre-send cancel: any 'created'
     job for this singletonKey is moved to 'cancelled' before the new
     boss.send. The new schedule wins; old stale jobs are tombstoned
     so the recurring/edit path produces exactly-one upcoming fire.

Duplicate-fire safety (the 'qwerd msg three times' bug) is already
covered at the handler level by the inner-mutex recent-run check
inside fireReminderInner — that's what stately was guarding against,
and the inner check works under standard too.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

apps/bot/src/scheduler/reminder-jobs.ts

@@ -8,31 +8,30 @@ import { fireReminder, type FireReminderPayload } from "./fire-reminder.js";
 export const REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE = "reminder.fire";
 
 export async function registerReminderJobs(boss: PgBoss): Promise<void> {
-  // 'stately' = at most 1 job per (state, singletonKey). Combined with
+  // 'standard' (the default) lets us enqueue a new fire even when an
-  // singletonKey="reminder:<id>" on every send, that means a duplicate
+  // older one for the same singletonKey is still 'created'. We need
-  // schedule call (e.g. operator double-clicked Save, or the
+  // that for the recurring/edit path: when a reminder is rescheduled,
-  // pg_notify('bot.command') consumer fired twice in the same tick)
+  // scheduleReminderFire() first cancels the stale 'created' job for
-  // is folded into the existing 'created' job instead of producing a
+  // this reminder and then sends a new one — under 'stately' the
-  // second run. The default 'standard' policy DOES NOT dedupe by
+  // SECOND send returns null (it dedupes against the first across
-  // singletonKey — that's how we ended up firing a reminder twice
+  // states), so a reschedule silently dropped the new fire and the
-  // when two reminder.fire jobs landed within microseconds.
+  // reminder never fired at the new time. Duplicate-fire safety is
-  // https://github.com/timgit/pg-boss/blob/master/docs/usage.md#queue-policies
+  // covered at the handler level by the inner-mutex recent-run check
-  await boss.createQueue(REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE, { policy: "stately" });
+  // in fire-reminder.ts (see DUPLICATE_FIRE_WINDOW_MS), which catches
+  // the microsecond-spaced send case 'stately' was supposed to guard.
+  await boss.createQueue(REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE, { policy: "standard" });
   // pg-boss v12's createQueue is idempotent and DOES NOT update the
-  // policy on an existing queue row. Earlier deployments created the
+  // policy on an existing queue row. Earlier deployments forced
-  // queue with the default 'standard' policy, so the queue keeps
+  // policy='stately' here, which broke reschedules. Force-flip back to
-  // accepting duplicate enqueues and the same reminder fires twice or
+  // 'standard' on every boot so an old queue row doesn't strand us.
-  // three times. Force the policy via direct SQL on every boot — this
-  // also future-proofs the upgrade path if pg-boss ever lets us flip
-  // policy through its API.
   try {
     await db.execute(
-      sql`UPDATE pgboss.queue SET policy = 'stately' WHERE name = ${REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE} AND policy <> 'stately'`,
+      sql`UPDATE pgboss.queue SET policy = 'standard' WHERE name = ${REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE} AND policy <> 'standard'`,
     );
   } catch (err) {
     logger.warn(
       { err },
-      "reminder.fire: failed to force queue policy=stately (handler-level dedupe still applies)",
+      "reminder.fire: failed to force queue policy=standard (handler-level dedupe still applies)",
     );
   }
   await boss.work<FireReminderPayload>(
@@ -62,6 +61,33 @@ export async function scheduleReminderFire(
   reminderId: string,
   scheduledAt: Date,
 ): Promise<string | null> {
+  const singletonKey = `reminder:${reminderId}`;
+  // Replace-then-send. Any 'created' (i.e. not yet started) job for
+  // this reminder is the stale next-fire from the previous schedule
+  // attempt; nuke it so the new schedule wins. Active/completed jobs
+  // are left alone — those represent in-flight or already-fired runs
+  // and the handler-level dedupe handles overlap.
+  try {
+    const cancelled = await db.execute(
+      sql`UPDATE pgboss.job
+          SET state = 'cancelled', completed_on = now()
+          WHERE name = ${REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE}
+            AND singleton_key = ${singletonKey}
+            AND state = 'created'
+          RETURNING id`,
+    );
+    if (cancelled.rows.length > 0) {
+      logger.info(
+        { reminderId, cancelled: cancelled.rows.length },
+        "reminder.fire: cancelled stale created jobs before reschedule",
+      );
+    }
+  } catch (err) {
+    // If the cancellation step fails, log but still try to send. Worst
+    // case we end up with two created jobs and the handler-level
+    // recent-run dedupe drops the duplicate fire.
+    logger.warn({ err, reminderId }, "reminder.fire: pre-send cancel failed");
+  }
   const id = await boss.send(
     REMINDER_FIRE_QUEUE,
     { reminderId },
@@ -70,8 +96,10 @@ export async function scheduleReminderFire(
       retryLimit: 3,
       retryDelay: 30,
       retryBackoff: true,
-      // Use the reminderId as a singleton key so re-scheduling cancels the old job
+      // Singleton key kept on the job row for diagnostics + the
-      singletonKey: `reminder:${reminderId}`,
+      // pre-send cancel above, even though 'standard' policy doesn't
+      // dedupe by it.
+      singletonKey,
     },
   );
   logger.info({ reminderId, jobId: id, scheduledAt }, "reminder.fire: scheduled");