Retro: Phase 2 — CRUD + Rename to Prism

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What Worked

• Single shared service module (phase2_service.py) — five entities, one file
• Per-project monotonic number via (project_id, number) UNIQUE
• Backward-compatible rename — zero external identifiers flipped
• Smoke-test-as-you-go caught MissingGreenlet PATCH bug in isolation
• One-line MCP verb dispatchers — verb logic stays in backend
• Frank stayed out of the loop the whole session — AI FIRST worked

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What Didn’t

• MissingGreenlet on PATCH after onupdate=func.now() — needed await session.refresh(row)
• Stale uvicorn binding port 8010 — old server still bound, new one failed silently
• Edit tool failures on unread files — three wasted tool calls
• Wakeup timer fired stale — completed work before timer expired
• Initial smoke missed PATCH — POST/GET looked green but PATCH blew up
• ScheduleWakeup at 60s burned cache for nothing — should have polled /health

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Lessons

• [project] L5 — All ORM models with onupdate=func.now() need await session.refresh(row) after any write
• [project] L6 — Every CRUD smoke must include PATCH, not just POST/GET
• [project] L7 — Rename without flipping external identifiers. ADR-017 pattern is the template
• [global] G3 — In async SQLAlchemy, onupdate=func.now() is a footgun unless paired with explicit refresh()
• [global] G4 — Before debugging ‘my code isn’t loading,’ verify the running process is actually the one I started