idempotency

Rules for making repeated event processing produce the same result as processing it once. This is called idempotency and helps systems handle retries safely.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when designing Lambda, SQS, or SNS handlers with stable request keys and DynamoDB-backed duplicate detection.
Why use it?
Message queues and serverless functions can deliver the same request more than once, which could otherwise create duplicate payments, emails, or records.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/goranerhartic/cursor-development-rules/idempotency
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GoranErhartic/cursor-development-rules

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 35 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 427 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00035 $0.00427
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00214
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00085
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00043

Measured 2d ago against content hash 552aca1fc693, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

idempotency scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.cursor/rules/languages/aws-lambda/idempotency.mdc · 33 lines

What it actually says

Idempotency Patterns

Why

SQS/SNS and Lambda retries deliver at least once. Idempotency ensures processing the same message/request multiple times has the same effect as once (e.g. no duplicate payments, emails, or records).

Powertools Idempotency

  • Persistence: DynamoDB table with id, expiration, status, data (or equivalent); TTL on expiration
  • Config: eventKeyJmesPath to extract key from event (e.g. body.idempotencyKey, or for SQS Records[0].body then parse and use eventId/aggregateId); expiresAfterSeconds; throwOnNoIdempotencyKey as needed
  • Wrapper: makeIdempotent(handler, { persistenceStore, config }) around handler; handler receives same event; first call runs and stores result; duplicate key returns stored result
  • Method-level: idempotent({ persistenceStore, config }) decorator on async method; key from first argument (e.g. payload.idempotencyKey)

Key Choice

  • API: Client sends Idempotency-Key header or body field; use for POST/PUT
  • SQS: Use eventId from envelope, or messageId + aggregateId; ensure key is stable per logical request
  • SNS: Use eventId or (aggregateId + eventType)

Conventions

  • Required for all state-changing SQS consumers and mutation APIs; store in DynamoDB with TTL; use stable, unique key per logical operation

Anti-Patterns

  • No idempotency for SQS consumers that write; key derived from unstable data; TTL too long (resource exhaustion)

See also: sqs-processing.mdc, dynamodb.mdc, error-handling.mdc

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 33 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A 552aca1fc693

Subscribe to this mod's changes

idempotency is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository GoranErhartic/cursor-development-rules (19 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 427 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.