Daily Term: Idempotency

Idempotency

Idempotency ensures that performing an operation multiple times has the same effect as doing it once, which is crucial in distributed systems. For example, a payment API might be idempotent: if a payment request is accidentally sent twice with the same ID, the system processes it only once. Idempotency prevents duplicate actions (e.g., double charges) but requires careful design, such as using unique request IDs and checking for prior execution.

Date: 2025-08-03