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Idempotent Task Create: List Before You Write — Automation For Makers

Day 17 · ~12 min●

First write lesson of the track. You need to create a task — but only if a task with that title doesn't already exist. Re-running must produce the same task, not a duplicate. What's the shape?

List the tasks first, look for the title, and only create if nothing matches?

Exactly. Read-then-write with an early return. The list check runs first; if a match is found, return its ID. If no match, create a new task and return its ID. The function's contract is 'give me the ID of a task with this title' — it never promises a new one:

python

for item in existing.get("items", []):
    if item.get("title") == title:
        return item["id"]

The return inside the loop exits immediately when a match is found — so the create call runs only when the loop falls through?

Right. Early return is the cleanest way to express 'if found, stop; otherwise, continue.' Here's the full idempotent pattern:

python

def idempotent_create_task(title: str) -> str:
    existing = toolset.execute_action(Action.GOOGLETASKS_LIST_TASKS, {"max_results": 100})
    for item in existing.get("items", []):
        if item.get("title") == title:
            print(f"Task '{title}' already exists with id={item['id']}")
            return item["id"]
    created = toolset.execute_action(Action.GOOGLETASKS_CREATE_TASK, {"title": title})
    print(f"Created new task '{title}' with id={created['id']}")
    return created["id"]

If I run this ten times with the same title, only the first call creates a task and the other nine short-circuit to the existing ID?

Exactly. That is idempotency: calling the function ten times leaves exactly one task in your list. Retries, reruns, manual executions — all safe. This is why idempotent writes are the foundation of reliable automation.

So now I can re-run any pipeline that creates this task without worrying about duplicates in my real task list?

Safe reruns forever. Every write in Week 4 starts from this pattern.

List-Then-Create

TL;DR: List existing records, return the matching ID if found, otherwise create and return the new ID.

Early return — match found inside loop exits immediately
Exact-match — item.get("title") == title defines uniqueness
Always returns an ID — caller never branches on new-vs-existing

Why idempotency matters

Without	With
retry creates duplicate	retry finds existing, returns same ID
re-run doubles the task list	re-run is a no-op

Day 17 · ~12 min●

First write lesson of the track. You need to create a task — but only if a task with that title doesn't already exist. Re-running must produce the same task, not a duplicate. What's the shape?

List the tasks first, look for the title, and only create if nothing matches?

python

for item in existing.get("items", []):
    if item.get("title") == title:
        return item["id"]

The return inside the loop exits immediately when a match is found — so the create call runs only when the loop falls through?

Right. Early return is the cleanest way to express 'if found, stop; otherwise, continue.' Here's the full idempotent pattern:

python

def idempotent_create_task(title: str) -> str:
    existing = toolset.execute_action(Action.GOOGLETASKS_LIST_TASKS, {"max_results": 100})
    for item in existing.get("items", []):
        if item.get("title") == title:
            print(f"Task '{title}' already exists with id={item['id']}")
            return item["id"]
    created = toolset.execute_action(Action.GOOGLETASKS_CREATE_TASK, {"title": title})
    print(f"Created new task '{title}' with id={created['id']}")
    return created["id"]

If I run this ten times with the same title, only the first call creates a task and the other nine short-circuit to the existing ID?

So now I can re-run any pipeline that creates this task without worrying about duplicates in my real task list?

Safe reruns forever. Every write in Week 4 starts from this pattern.

List-Then-Create

TL;DR: List existing records, return the matching ID if found, otherwise create and return the new ID.

Early return — match found inside loop exits immediately
Exact-match — item.get("title") == title defines uniqueness
Always returns an ID — caller never branches on new-vs-existing

Why idempotency matters

Without	With
retry creates duplicate	retry finds existing, returns same ID
re-run doubles the task list	re-run is a no-op

def idempotent_create_task(title: str) -> str: existing = toolset.execute_action(Action.GOOGLETASKS_LIST_TASKS, {"max_results": 100}) for item in existing.get("items", []): if item.get("title") == title: print(f"Task '{title}' already exists with id={item['id']}") return item["id"] created = toolset.execute_action(Action.GOOGLETASKS_CREATE_TASK, {"title": title}) print(f"Created new task '{title}' with id={created['id']}") return created["id"]

List-Then-Create

TL;DR: List existing records, return the matching ID if found, otherwise create and return the new ID.

Early return — match found inside loop exits immediately

Exact-match — item.get("title") == title defines uniqueness

Always returns an ID — caller never branches on new-vs-existing

Why idempotency matters

Without	With
retry creates duplicate	retry finds existing, returns same ID
re-run doubles the task list	re-run is a no-op

List-Then-Create

TL;DR: List existing records, return the matching ID if found, otherwise create and return the new ID.

Early return — match found inside loop exits immediately

Exact-match — item.get("title") == title defines uniqueness

Always returns an ID — caller never branches on new-vs-existing

Why idempotency matters

Without	With
retry creates duplicate	retry finds existing, returns same ID
re-run doubles the task list	re-run is a no-op

List-Then-Create

Why idempotency matters

List-Then-Create

Why idempotency matters

List-Then-Create

Why idempotency matters

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List-Then-Create

Why idempotency matters

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