`rel="next"` from the legacy `/query` aliases points at `/api/query`, silently moving clients off the path they requested
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 50/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Active
- Tech stack
- javascript
Research direction
Start with routes/compatability.js, controllers/utils.js, and routes/tests/query.test.js, then inspect how req.originalUrl differs from req.baseUrl + req.path for the three aliases. Confirm the chosen link behavior with a POST test, update public/API.html, and ensure the decision is explicit and covered by the test.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Summary
/v1/api/getByProperties, /v1/api/query.action, and /v1/api/getByProperties.action are URL rewrites onto /v1/api/query (routes/compatability.js:8-10). Now that #312 gives /query a rel="next" Link, a response to any of those aliases carries a next link naming /v1/api/query rather than the path the client actually requested. A client that walks its pages leaves the legacy path after page 1 and is never told.
Verified on production 2026-09-24, read-only:
POST /v1/api/getByProperties?limit=1 {"type":"Annotation"}
POST /v1/api/query.action?limit=1 {"type":"Annotation"}
POST /v1/api/getByProperties.action?limit=1 {"type":"Annotation"}
-> 200, all three:
Link: <https://store.rerum.io/v1/api/query?limit=1&skip=1>; rel="next"
Why this matters
setNextPageLink() builds the path from req.baseUrl + req.path (controllers/utils.js:155). express-urlrewrite replaces req.url before the router matches, so by the time the /query controller runs those two describe the rewritten route. req.originalUrl is untouched and still holds what the client sent, so the alias is recoverable either way.
Pointing at the canonical path is a defensible thing for rel="next" to do. The problem is that it is currently a side effect of how the rewrite works rather than a decision we made, and it happens silently:
- Nothing in the response says the path changed. There is no
Content-Location, so a client cannot know page 2 lives elsewhere without diffing URLs it did not construct. - The aliases exist because old clients still call them. Those are the clients least likely to survive being handed a path their stack was never set up for — fixed base paths, proxy rules, allowlists.
- Page 1 and page 2 of one walk arrive from two different endpoints, so anything that caches, logs, or rate limits per path sees one walk as two.
Scope is narrow: only paged endpoints are affected, which is /query through its three aliases. The /batch_create -> /bulkCreate rewrite does not page.
Neither the behavior nor the aliases are covered anywhere. routes/__tests__/query.test.js never exercises a rewritten path — __tests__/core_provider_contract.test.js:14 only asserts that compatability.js is mounted — and public/API.html does not mention getByProperties at all.
Proposed change
Decide which of these we mean, then make it explicit in code and in public/API.html.
-
Keep the canonical link and announce it. Serve
Content-Location: /v1/api/queryon responses that arrived through a rewrite, so the move from alias to canonical path is stated rather than inferred. One header, and the current behavior stops being accidental. -
Keep the client on the path it asked for. Build the link from the pathname of
req.originalUrlinstead ofreq.baseUrl + req.path. For every non-rewritten route the two are identical, so nothing else changes. This keeps a legacy walk entirely on the legacy path, at the cost of advertising a deprecated URL in a header we control.
Recommend option 1. The canonical path is the better destination, and the only real complaint is that we currently arrive there without saying so.
Either way, add a case to routes/__tests__/query.test.js that POSTs to /v1/api/getByProperties and asserts the rel="next" path, so the choice cannot drift, and give the aliases a line in public/API.html noting that they are rewrites onto /query and what their next links point at.
- Dominant language
- JavaScript
- Stars
- 3
- Forks
- 6
- Avg merge
- 3d 12h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 4
Getting set up
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- No pull request template
- Read the contributing guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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