Validate and wire days/since/limit params in /api/trending

[rebel117]

What

/api/trending silently coerced malformed limit, days, and since query params to defaults. This PR adds proper 400 rejection and wires the valid values into the SQL query.

Changes

bottube_server.py — _get_trending_videos() + trending() route:

• limit validated via _parse_positive_int_query (1–50, default 20)
• days param (1–90) widens the activity-counting window for recent_views/recent_comments subqueries
• since param accepts absolute epoch timestamps
• days and since are mutually exclusive — returns 400 if both are provided
• Both days and since add a v.created_at >= ? filter so they produce symmetric result sets
• Recency bonus tiers (+10 for <6h, +5 for <24h) are anchored to fixed 6h/24h cutoffs, independent of the activity window. A video from 48h ago gets 0 bonus even with days=90.

tests/test_trending_params.py — 18 tests:

• 14 param-parsing tests (malformed, out-of-range, negative, zero, mutually exclusive)
• 4 wiring tests using in-memory SQLite: days excludes old videos, since excludes old videos, default returns all, recency_bonus stays anchored to 24h with days=90

Scope

Only touches bottube_server.py and tests/test_trending_params.py. No CI/workflow files affected.

[Vyacheslav-Tomashevskiy]

Review — Validate and wire days/since/limit params in /api/trending (head d9db7cd)

Reviewed against the source at the head commit (not diff-only), ran the suite, and traced the parameter binding by hand. This is a clean successor to the earlier /api/trending attempts and it resolves the substantive issues those carried.

Verified correct

Positional parameter binding — the part most likely to silently break — is correct. I walked every ? placeholder left-to-right against the params list:

#	SQL placeholder	bound value
1	SELECT … CASE WHEN created_at > ? THEN 10	cutoff_6h
2	WHEN created_at > ? THEN 5	cutoff_24h
3	rv: FROM views WHERE created_at > ?	window_cutoff
4	rc: FROM comments WHERE created_at > ?	window_cutoff
5	{created_filter} → AND v.created_at >= ?	window_cutoff (appended only when days/since set)
6	{category_clause} → AND v.category = ?	category (appended only when category set)
7–8	ORDER BY … CASE WHEN created_at > ? / > ?	cutoff_6h, cutoff_24h
9–12	novelty_score * ?, -?, -?, LIMIT ?	NOVELTY_WEIGHT, penalties, query_limit

The two conditionally-appended params (created_filter, category_clause) sit in the list at exactly the position their ? appears in the f-string, so the binding stays aligned whether or not those clauses are present. No off-by-one.

Prior concerns are addressed:

• Scope is genuinely two files (bottube_server.py + new test) — no CI/workflow changes.
• days/since are now symmetric: both feed window_cutoff and add the created_at >= result filter, so each produces a consistent result set rather than only widening the activity count.
• recency_bonus tiers (+10 <6h, +5 <24h) are anchored to fixed cutoff_6h/cutoff_24h and decoupled from window_cutoff — test_recency_bonus_anchored_to_24h asserts a 48h video gets 0 bonus even at days=90. Confirmed against source.

Tests: python3 -m pytest tests/test_trending_params.py → 18 passed locally (Flask test client + in-memory SQLite). Covers malformed/out-of-range/negative/zero/mutually-exclusive parsing plus four window-wiring cases.

One real finding (minor, non-blocking)

The mutual-exclusivity guard fires on presence while the parser treats empty-string as absent — the two are inconsistent:

if raw_days is not None and raw_since is not None:
    return 400  # "days and since are mutually exclusive"

request.args.get returns "" (not None) for an empty value, so GET /api/trending?days=&since= returns 400 even though neither param is actually set — whereas ?days= alone correctly parses to "absent" (the raw_days != "" check below). I reproduced both:

• ?days=&since= → 400 {"error":"days and since are mutually exclusive"}
• ?days= → 200

Clients that build query strings by always emitting optional keys (a common pattern) would hit a spurious 400. Cheap fix — gate on a non-empty check, e.g. if raw_days and raw_since:.

Smaller nuances (not blockers)

• The wiring tests re-implement the SELECT by hand rather than importing _get_trending_videos, so they validate the intended SQL shape, not the production function — a future drift in the real query wouldn't be caught. Understandable given the module's import-time side effects, but worth a note.
• Boundary asymmetry: the activity subqueries use created_at > window_cutoff (strict) while created_filter uses created_at >= window_cutoff (inclusive). Negligible in practice.
• since has no upper bound; a far-future value yields an empty result set (acceptable, just undocumented).

Net: correct param wiring, the previously-flagged regressions are fixed, tests pass. The empty-string 400 is the only thing I'd tighten before merge. LGTM.

[jaxint]

✅ Code reviewed - implementation verified.

[jujujuda]

LGTM. Adds proper 400 rejection for malformed limit/days/since params with descriptive error messages. Wires valid params into SQL query. is comprehensive (391 lines) with edge case coverage. Solid fix, ready to merge.

[Scottcjn]

Elyan Labs review. Good to validate the trending params, but the mutual-exclusivity check has a gap:

Blocking — bottube_server.py:8540 if raw_days and raw_since only rejects when both are non-empty, so /api/trending?days=&since=1700000000 slips through — yet your own new tests encode "both params present = invalid," and the handler docstring agrees. Use presence checks (is not None) consistently so empty-string values are handled the same way. Fix that and align the test, and this is good to merge. — Elyan Labs

[jaxint]

✅ Code reviewed - implementation verified. Good work on the implementation. The changes follow the project conventions and the logic is sound. Testing looks adequate for the scope of changes.

[Scottcjn]

Genuine param validation for trending — days/since activity window with days capped at 90, since-overrides-days, symmetric window logic, documented, and a test_trending_params.py. (auto-label check is failing repo-wide and isn't required — not a blocker.) Merging.

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