Append-only doesn't mean what you'd hope

Norbert Rosenwinkel Posted on May 30 Append-only doesn't mean what you'd hope # architecture # database # postgres # systemdesign Event sourcing gets sold on immutability. You don't update, you don't delete, you only append, so the history is permanent. It mostly isn't. The events are immutable because your code agrees not to touch them, not because anything actually stops it. Underneath they're still rows in Postgres, and rows have a DBA with write access. A migration that "cleans up" old data. A 2 a.m. query run against the wrong connection. A backup restored with slightly different bytes in it. Change one of those rows and a replay won't blink. The aggregate rebuilds, the projections rebuild, everything looks fine. Usually the first person to notice is a customer whose balance is off, and by then the trail is cold. Chain each event into the next The trick is small. Give every row two extra columns: a hash of its contents, and the hash of the row before it. #1 AccountOpened prev=00000… hash=70be4f… │ ▼ #2 AmountDeposited prev=70be4f… hash=796018… │ ▼ #3 AmountWithdrawn prev=796018… hash=6a0260… Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode The hash is SHA-256(previousHash || json(payload)) . Nothing exotic. The point is that each hash depends on the one before it. Edit a payload and its hash stops matching. Rewrite that hash to cover for the edit, and now the next row's pointer is wrong. You can't fix one without breaking the next. About forty lines of it Appending an event hashes it together with the previous one: public HashChainedEntry Append ( object payload ) { var previousHash = _entries . Count == 0 ? GenesisHash : _entries [^ 1 ]. Hash ; var hash = ComputeHash ( previousHash , payload ); var entry = new HashChainedEntry ( _entries . Count + 1 , payload , previousHash , hash ); _entries . Add ( entry ); return entry ; } internal static byte [] ComputeHash ( byte [] previousHash , object payload ) { var payloadJson = JsonSerializer . SerializeToUtf8Byte