Isolating a product with facade and contracts

Use this skill to migrate an existing product to the isolated architecture used by Visual review. Keep migrations incremental, with narrow PRs that avoid broad breakage.

Prerequisite: the product must already live under products/<name>/. This skill does not cover moving code out of posthog/, ee/, or other shared directories — do that first.

Core docs to load first

Read these before changing code:

1. products/architecture.md
2. products/README.md
3. docs/internal/monorepo-layout.md
4. posthog/models/team/README.md (team extension model rule)
5. docs/published/handbook/engineering/type-system.md (serializer/OpenAPI type flow)
6. docs/published/handbook/engineering/ai/implementing-mcp-tools.md (schema quality and team isolation expectations)
7. .agents/security.md (SQL/HogQL security guidelines)

Use Visual review as the concrete reference implementation:

• products/visual_review/backend/facade/contracts.py
• products/visual_review/backend/facade/api.py
• products/visual_review/backend/presentation/views.py
• products/visual_review/backend/presentation/serializers.py
• products/visual_review/backend/logic.py
• products/visual_review/backend/tests/test_api.py
• products/visual_review/backend/tests/test_presentation.py

Before changing code, get the baseline:

hogli product:maturity <name>    # scores models, facade, presentation, boundaries, codegen
hogli product:lint <name>        # structural lint + isolation chain (strict if facade/contracts.py exists)
rg -n "from products\.<name>\.backend\.(models|logic|presentation|tasks|storage)" .

The rg output is your import map: every line is a caller that needs to migrate to the facade.

Guardrails

• Keep facades thin; put business rules in logic.py.
• Transaction boundaries belong in the facade (or logic), not in views.
• Never return ORM models across product boundaries.
• Keep contracts pure (no Django/DRF imports).
• Filter by team_id in querysets.
• Do not add product-specific fields to Team; use a Team Extension model.
• Add request/response schema annotations on viewset endpoints (@validated_request or @extend_schema).
• Regenerate OpenAPI/types (hogli build:openapi) when serializer/view changes affect API schema.
• Presentation may only reach internals via the facade — enforced by the presentation must use facade import-linter contract in pyproject.toml (tool.importlinter). Any new internal module (cache.py, helpers.py, …) is auto-covered; there is no blocklist to maintain. New cross-cutting imports must either go through the facade or be temporarily allowlisted there.

Required migration workflow

1. Build an import map for the target product.
   • Find cross-product imports into target internals (models, logic, presentation, non-facade modules).
   • Classify each usage by capability (read/list, detail/read, create/update/delete, async/task, webhook/event).
2. Define the minimal contract surface.
   • Start from currently consumed fields only.
   • Create frozen dataclasses in backend/facade/contracts.py using pydantic.dataclasses.dataclass — same shape as the stdlib variant but with runtime type validation on construction.
3. Introduce a thin facade in backend/facade/api.py.
   • Map ORM instances to contracts with explicit mapper functions.
   • Keep method names capability-oriented and stable.
4. Migrate callers in small batches.
   • Replace one caller cluster at a time (single endpoint, single task, or single service area).
   • Keep compatibility shims only when needed; remove promptly.
5. Move presentation to consume the facade.
   • Serializers convert JSON <-> contracts.
   • Views call facade methods only.
6. Enforce boundaries and verify. This is a four-step chain — each step depends on the previous one, and hogli product:lint (via IsolationChainCheck) fails if any step is skipped:
   1. Real facade — backend/facade/api.py must have actual function defs, not just re-exports from logic.
   2. Tach interfaces — preferred path is to add the product name to the regex in the existing shared [[interfaces]] block in tach.toml that exposes backend\.facade.* and backend\.presentation\.views.*. Only add a new dedicated block if the product needs a non-standard expose pattern.
   3. backend:contract-check script — add to package.json so turbo-discover treats the product as isolated.
   4. Narrowed turbo.json inputs — restrict backend:contract-check inputs to backend/facade/** and backend/presentation/** so the Django suite is only re-run on facade/presentation changes (see products/visual_review/turbo.json).
   • Verify with tach check --dependencies --interfaces, lint-imports (import-linter contract for presentation → facade), and hogli product:lint <name>.
   • Use hogli product:maturity <name> for a detailed breakdown of remaining isolation work scored across models, facade, presentation, boundaries, codegen.
   • Run focused tests for changed files, then product-level backend tests.

Legacy leaks during migration

If posthog/ or ee/ still imports product internals (backend.models, backend.oauth, …) when you cut the first isolation PR, add a second [[interfaces]] block under the "Legacy leaks" section of tach.toml allow-listing exactly the modules core still touches. This keeps the build green while you migrate callers in subsequent PRs. Shrink and delete that block as imports move behind the facade — the final PR removes it entirely. hogli product:lint flags any product that still has legacy leak interfaces with a ⚠ has legacy interface leaks warning.

PR slicing strategy

Default to several PRs instead of one big migration:

• PR 1: Add contracts + facade methods, with no caller behavior changes. For a small product this PR can also flip api.py/webhooks.py into presentation/ and enable the 4-step chain (see user_interviews PR #59132 for that combined shape).
• PR 2-N: Migrate caller clusters one-by-one to the facade.
• Final PR: Remove deprecated internal import paths, drop "Legacy leaks" [[interfaces]] blocks and ignore_imports TODOs, and clean dead adapters.

If a product has many endpoints, migrate in this order:

1. Read-only list/detail APIs (lowest risk)
2. Internal service-to-service call sites
3. Write paths (create/update/delete)
4. Background tasks / async entrypoints
5. Remaining edge endpoints and cleanup

Done criteria

Treat migration as complete only when:

• Cross-product imports use backend/facade only.
• Facade returns/accepts contracts, not ORM.
• Presentation layer no longer encodes business logic.
• Tests cover facade and presentation boundaries.
• The product is listed in the shared [[interfaces]] block in tach.toml exposing backend.facade.* and backend.presentation.views.* — no legacy leak block remains.
• tach check --dependencies --interfaces passes with no violations for this product.
• lint-imports passes (import-linter verifies presentation doesn't bypass the facade internally).
• hogli product:lint <name> shows no legacy leak warning and the isolation chain is intact.
• backend:contract-check is present in package.json with turbo.json inputs narrowed to backend/facade/** and backend/presentation/** (enables isolated testing in CI).