external-services

External systems are unreliable and untrusted. Keep gameplay resilient when they are slow or unavailable.

Configuration and secrets

Use CVars, environment variables, or repository secret mechanisms. Never commit credentials or production endpoints that contain secrets. Validate URLs and configuration at startup.

Requests

Set explicit timeouts, cancellation, bounded response sizes, and supported content types. Validate status codes and response schemas before use. Do not deserialize arbitrary polymorphic payloads.

Reliability

Define retry policy only for idempotent operations. Use bounded backoff and avoid retry storms. Cache stable data where appropriate and define stale-data behavior.

Simulation boundary

Do not block the main simulation thread on network I/O. Apply results through the supported main-thread path and revalidate entity or round state before mutation.

Privacy and logging

Send only required data. Avoid player-identifying or private content unless the feature explicitly requires and documents it. Redact secrets and payloads from logs.

Verification

Test timeout, cancellation, invalid certificate or endpoint, non-success status, malformed response, oversized response, duplicate callback, stale result, and service outage.