netlify / netlify/open-api

Clarify which PATCH requests add vs. overwrite

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Dominant language
Go
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323
Forks
133
Avg merge
2d 8h
Merged PRs (30d)
2

Description

We had an enterprise customer who was surprised when their PATCH request to update environment variables actually overwrote their existing variables. They said:

I made this patch request, expecting only the named environment variables to be updated. Instead, the entire env block was replaced.

The API call was curl --location --request PATCH 'https://api.netlify.com/api/v1/sites/:site_id' with payload

"build_settings": {
        "env": {
            "KEY": "VALUE"
        }

which resulted in replacing several variables with just this one new one, KEY=VALUE

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Research direction

Start from the OpenAPI definition for PATCH /api/v1/sites/:site_id and inspect how the build_settings.env payload is described. Confirm whether named variables are merged or the entire env block is replaced, then clarify the specification so the documented behavior matches the observed request.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
openapi
Domain
api, documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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