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wownerogue/docs/FINANCIAL_RECONCILIATION.md
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jwinterm fad2a695bd Wownerogue
A browser-based roguelike synchronized with crypto block timing. A run is a race
against the next block: reach the exit before the block lands, or the house wins.
The same codebase runs the solo dungeon, the social Tavern, and operator-selected
PvP and race rulesets, with separate free and paid leaderboards.

Self-hostable under the MIT License. See README.md to run it, docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
for the design, and docs/DEPLOY.md to operate an instance.
2026-07-27 08:23:01 -04:00

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Financial reconciliation

Payouts and refunds move real funds, so any row that is not in a terminal state is treated as a liability with an unknown on-chain outcome rather than a failed transfer that can be resent. This document describes the states, the retry rules that follow from them, and the manual reconciliation procedure.

Where to look

The admin dashboard (html/admin.html) has separate Payouts and Refunds tabs. Each has a status filter whose Needs Attention option selects exactly the non-terminal states:

  • Payouts: pending, processing, failed, needs_review, permanently_failed.
  • Refunds: requested, processing, needs_review.

The overview panel and each list also report per-status counts. Compare the row against the service logs and the wallet's outgoing-transfer history before taking any action.

Payout states

State Meaning
pending Queued for the batch payout worker in gameModeManager. That worker owns these rows exclusively.
processing Claimed by a worker. The wallet call may already have broadcast.
completed Settled, with a transaction hash recorded.
failed The wallet call reported an error and the row is below the retry limit.
permanently_failed Retries reached PAYOUT_MAX_RETRIES (default 3).
needs_review Quarantined for manual reconciliation. Never retried automatically.
batched Legacy status from an earlier batching scheme. Current code does not write it; it remains accepted by the status constraint and is counted in dashboard totals.

PayoutRetryService retries only failed rows below the retry limit, claiming each with FOR UPDATE SKIP LOCKED so the batcher and the retry worker cannot both send the same row. It also sweeps processing rows that have not advanced within its stale window and moves them to needs_review with the reason recorded in last_error. The stale window defaults to max(PAYOUT_RETRY_INTERVAL_MS * 3, 15 minutes).

Refund states

Refunds have their own durable outbox table, payment_refunds. Its state shape is enforced by a database CHECK constraint, so a state and its timestamps or evidence cannot disagree.

State Meaning
recorded Entitlements and payment state were reversed with no on-chain transfer requested. Terminal.
requested Queued for a transfer. Not yet claimed.
processing Claimed. The wallet call may already have broadcast.
completed Settled. The constraint requires a non-empty tx_hash.
needs_review Quarantined. The constraint requires a non-empty error_message.

Only requested rows may be claimed. No code path moves processing back to requested, so a crash or a lost wallet response can never produce an automatic second transfer.

Retry rules

  • A payout in processing, needs_review, or any state carrying a transaction hash must never be retried. Absence of a matching transfer in wallet history is not proof that no broadcast occurred.
  • POST /api/admin/payouts/:id/retry accepts only a hashless failed or permanently_failed row and requires an explicit confirm (query parameter or JSON body); anything else returns 409 or 400. The dashboard exposes the Retry button only for those rows and sends the confirmation after a local prompt. The update predicate re-checks every safety condition, so a concurrent status change cannot be overwritten.
  • Use the retry action only after proving the recorded error happened before broadcast and confirming that wallet history contains no matching transfer.
  • There is no resend action for any refund state, in the dashboard or the API.

Reconciliation checklist

  1. Preserve the database row, service logs, wallet files, and current backups before changing anything.
  2. Match currency and network, destination, exact atomic amount, creation and processing times, transaction hash if present, and wallet outgoing-transfer history.
  3. If a matching wallet transfer exists, record its hash and confirmation evidence in an audited remediation. Do not create a replacement transfer.
  4. If no transfer appears, treat that as inconclusive until the wallet is synchronized and the relevant time window and mempool have been checked. Escalate ambiguous cases instead of retrying.
  5. Re-run the read-only audit, scripts/deploy/financial-audit.sql, after any reviewed database remediation and retain the before and after evidence with the incident record.

Alerts

AlertService runs periodic checks over the same aggregate states and sends two financial alerts: one for any payout or refund in needs_review, and one for payout processing rows or refund requested/processing rows that have not moved within FINANCIAL_REVIEW_STALE_MS (default 900000, that is 15 minutes). Both resolve automatically once their count returns to zero. Alerts are read-only: they never move, retry, or cancel a transfer.

Environment variables referenced here are documented in src/.env.example.

No generic resolve endpoint

There is deliberately no "mark resolved" endpoint. A reviewed state transition needs a case-specific, audited remediation because the correct result depends on wallet evidence and on whether value was actually transferred.