Use case · Exactly once
Orders, payments, applications.Sent once, or not at all.
Some forms change the world when they are sent: an order is placed, money moves, an application is filed. Kaabist records those steps just before and just after they run (a fence), so a crash, a retry or a redeploy can never send them twice.
The problem
A script that times out right after clicking Submit cannot know whether the click went through. Retrying may order twice; not retrying may order nothing. Most automation tools simply retry.
How it works
01
Fence the submit
Mark the step as a side effect and follow it with a checkpoint. Kaabist records the fence before the click and closes it once the step's expectation holds.
example{ "click": { "role": "button", "name": "Place order" }, "side_effect": true, "expect": { "url": "**/orders/*" } }, { "checkpoint": "order-placed" }02
A crash pauses, it does not retry
When a server finds a fence still open, it does not click again. The job pauses as side_effect_ambiguous with a snapshot and a screenshot, and you check the site and decide.
03
One job per order
Create each job with an Idempotency-Key. Repeating the call, after a timeout or a deploy, returns the job you already started instead of a second one.
examplecurl https://api.kaab.ist/v1/jobs \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $KAAB_API_KEY" \ -H "Idempotency-Key: order-10482" \ -d '{"program": "place-order", "inputs": {"sku": "HP-1037", "qty": 2}}'04
Rehearse without buying
Dry runs stop right before the first side effect. Test the whole checkout, with real pages and real validation, without placing an order.
Questions
Askedbefore you ask.
More use cases
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Turn a website into an API
Describe the flow once as a program with inputs. From then on it is one HTTP call: inputs in, typed JSON out, with versions, aliases and webhooks, as if the site had shipped the API itself.