The design decision I'm proudest of: my allergen scanner gets MORE careful when the product database is empty

Short summary

A solo developer shares a key design decision from their bootstrapped baby tracker app: when the allergen scanner encounters an empty or unreadable product database record, it flags the item for manual review rather than returning a false 'safe' result. The post details how this fail-safe approach caught an imported peanut butter product that returned zero ingredient data, and offers two lessons: the hardest-looking problems are often solvable with off-the-shelf tools, and safe failure modes should be built first, not bolted on later.

• •Empty database records trigger deeper scanning, not a false all-clear
• •Fail-safe design caught an imported peanut butter product with zero ingredient data
• •Build safe failure modes first; the hard part is the logic, not the tech stack

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