How do I handle denormalization staleness?
Decide whether to update on change (when the user's name changes, update all their posts; expensive but consistent) or accept staleness (the name on old posts stays as it was; cheaper, fine for many cases like chat messages). Document the decision.
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More FAQs in Common API Relationship Mistakes in MongoDB (and How to Fix Them)
N+1 queries, populating without select, deep nested populate, storing refs as strings, no index on ref fields, embedding unbounded arrays, not handling null populate, denormalizing without a staleness plan, no cascade delete, and returning internal fields.
Without select, populate returns the entire referenced document, including sensitive fields like passwordHash. Use .populate('authorId', 'firstName lastName photoUrl') to return only what the client needs.
If you populate a ref that was deleted, the field is null. Check for null before accessing the populated field. For critical relationships, consider cascade delete or a soft delete with a deletedAt flag.
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