Two tools built on our data, and what our docs left out

Description and use

Developers built tools on Pulsed Media’s public data feeds but faced undocumented field semantics, causing misinterpretations. Clarifying field types and meanings corrected tool behavior and improved polling efficiency with ETag and timestamp checks.

Problem

Developers built tools on Pulsed Media’s public data feeds but encountered undocumented field semantics, leading to incorrect interpretations and UI errors.

Outcome

Tools now correctly interpret feed data, reducing UI errors and bandwidth waste. Conditional polling aligns with feed rebuild rate, improving efficiency.

Workflow

• 1. Identify undocumented fields in feeds.
• 2. Analyze tool behavior and errors.
• 3. Update documentation to specify field types and semantics.
• 4. Modify tools to parse floats, handle nulls, and respect 'available' flag.
• 5. Adjust price comparison logic to account for base vs. starting prices.
• 6. Implement conditional GETs using ETag/Last-Modified.
• 7. Add timestamp validation and polling rate alignment.
• 8. Test changes against real feed data.

Evidence

A float that is usually whole.

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Negative stock.

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Stock that isn't sent.

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Products with no monthly price.

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Two prices for one product.

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PulseWatch fetches the catalog every five minutes. Our product feed is rebuilt every 15 minutes...

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Check the timestamp, not just the status code.

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