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AgentCompany/builtin-skills/software-engineer/clean-code/references/bound-wrap-third-party.md
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ZacharyZhang-NY e74dafcd36 Silence render-disposed spam, unbreak bundled skills, drop board wake
Three independently ugly bugs that all fed the same log flood:

* Electron's `WebFrameMain.send` writes every "Render frame was disposed"
  to stderr via `console.error`. When the worker fans a second
  agent-event past a reloading renderer, we produced thousands of
  identical lines and stalled the main loop on stderr I/O. Added a
  `mainFrame.detached` guard so the send is short-circuited before
  Electron's own catch block fires, and installed a targeted filter in
  `suppress-warnings.ts` (now actually imported from the entry point)
  so the specific `console.error("Error sending from webFrameMain:"…)`
  noise never reaches the terminal. Any other payload still surfaces.

* `dispatchAgentMessage` accepted the human-reader sentinel as a wake
  target when an agent replied to `__board__` — `wakeAgentIfPossible`
  then called `db.getAgent("__board__")`, threw, and the dispatcher
  kept repeating on every send. Strip `HUMAN_SENDER_ID` at
  `resolveMessageWakeTargets`, and keep a defense-in-depth guard in the
  heartbeat so a stray caller (future automation fan-out) cannot
  reintroduce the crash.

* Pi's skills loader rejects any SKILL.md whose frontmatter `name`
  diverges from its parent directory. The four bundled `my-writing-style`
  copies declared `name: writing-style-skill`, so every install emitted
  a warning and dropped the skill. They also lived as orphan gitlinks
  (mode 160000 without .gitmodules), and the global `*.md` gitignore
  hid every other SKILL.md from version control. Fixed the frontmatter
  to match the dir, converted the dangling submodules to plain trees,
  and allowlisted `builtin-skills/**/*.md` so a fresh clone carries the
  catalogue instead of silently losing it.
2026-04-20 08:13:48 -04:00

2.4 KiB

title, impact, impactDescription, tags
title impact impactDescription tags
Wrap Third-Party APIs HIGH reduces dependency change points from N call sites to 1 wrapper bound, boundary, wrapper, third-party, dependency

Wrap Third-Party APIs

When you use a third-party API, wrap it in a class you control. This minimizes your dependency on the third party, makes testing easier, and gives you a single place to change when the API evolves.

Incorrect (direct dependency scattered across codebase):

// Every caller depends on ACMEPort directly
public class SensorReader {
    public void readSensors() {
        try {
            ACMEPort port = new ACMEPort(12);
            port.open();
            // ...
        } catch (ACMEDeviceException e) {
            logger.log("Device exception", e);
        } catch (ACMEConfigException e) {
            logger.log("Config exception", e);
        } catch (ACMECommunicationException e) {
            logger.log("Communication exception", e);
        }
    }
}
// If ACME changes their API, every file that uses it must change

Correct (wrapped behind your own interface):

public class LocalPort {
    private ACMEPort innerPort;

    public LocalPort(int portNumber) {
        innerPort = new ACMEPort(portNumber);
    }

    public void open() {
        try {
            innerPort.open();
        } catch (ACMEDeviceException | ACMEConfigException | ACMECommunicationException e) {
            throw new PortException(e);
        }
    }
}

// Callers depend only on your wrapper
public class SensorReader {
    public void readSensors() {
        try {
            LocalPort port = new LocalPort(12);
            port.open();
            // ...
        } catch (PortException e) {
            logger.log("Port error", e);
        }
    }
}

Benefits:

  • One place to change when the third-party API changes
  • Easier to mock in tests (mock LocalPort, not the vendor library)
  • Freedom to switch vendors without rewriting the entire codebase
  • Consistent exception hierarchy under your control

When NOT to wrap:

  • Stable, widely-used standard library APIs (e.g., java.util.List, String) do not need wrapping.
  • If the wrapper would be a 1:1 passthrough with no value added, it's premature. Wait until you have a concrete reason (testing, migration, or simplification).

Reference: Clean Code, Chapter 8: Boundaries