Music Store Management Platform

Audit Trail — Database Change History

Version 1.0  |  Draft



# 1. Overview

The audit trail captures every data change across all domain tables — who changed what, when, and the before/after values. This provides a complete history of business operations for troubleshooting, compliance, and accountability. While not required for SOC 2 certification, the audit trail satisfies the "monitoring" control family and provides evidence of change management.



# 2. Design

## 2.1 Approach

A single `audit_log` table captures all changes via a database trigger or application-level middleware. Each row represents one field change on one record.

Pros of application-level (chosen):
- Access to the authenticated user ID (DB triggers don't know who's logged in)
- Can exclude bulk/system operations selectively
- Works with any database (no Postgres-specific trigger functions)
- Easier to test

Cons:
- Every service write must call the audit logger
- Possible to miss a write (mitigated by a shared helper)

## 2.2 What Gets Audited

Audited (all domain tables):
- account, member, member_identifier
- product, inventory_unit, category, supplier
- rental, rental_agreement, rental_payment
- repair_ticket, repair_line_item, repair_part
- transaction, transaction_line_item
- tax_exemption, account_payment_method, account_processor_link
- user, role, role_permission, user_role
- file (uploads and deletes)

NOT audited (high-volume, low-value):
- email_log (already an append-only log)
- stock_receipt (already append-only)
- price_history (already append-only)
- inventory_unit_status, item_condition (lookup tables — low risk)
- Session/token data



# 3. Database Schema

## 3.1 audit_log

Column | Type | Notes
id | uuid PK |
company_id | uuid | Tenant scoping
table_name | varchar(100) | Which table was changed
record_id | uuid | Primary key of the changed record
action | varchar(10) | insert, update, delete
field_name | varchar(100) | Nullable for insert/delete. Which column changed for updates.
old_value | text | Nullable. Previous value (JSON-encoded for complex types)
new_value | text | Nullable. New value (JSON-encoded for complex types)
changed_by | uuid | User who made the change (nullable for system operations)
changed_at | timestamptz | When the change occurred
request_id | varchar(100) | Nullable. Correlates with Pino request ID for tracing.

## 3.2 Indexes

- `(company_id, table_name, record_id)` — find all changes to a specific record
- `(company_id, changed_by)` — find all changes by a specific user
- `(company_id, changed_at)` — time-range queries for retention
- `(changed_at)` — for retention cleanup job

## 3.3 Storage Estimate

Typical music store: ~50 users, ~5000 accounts, ~200 transactions/day
- ~500 audit rows/day (updates, creates across all tables)
- ~15,000 rows/month
- ~180,000 rows/year
- At ~200 bytes/row: ~36 MB/year

Retention at 30 days: ~15,000 rows, under 5 MB. Negligible.



# 4. Audit Helper

## 4.1 Service Pattern

```typescript
import { auditLog } from '../lib/audit.js'

// In a service method:
async update(db, companyId, id, input, changedBy, requestId) {
  const existing = await this.getById(db, companyId, id)

  const [updated] = await db.update(table).set(input).where(...).returning()

  // Log each changed field
  await auditLog(db, {
    companyId,
    tableName: 'account',
    recordId: id,
    action: 'update',
    changes: diffFields(existing, updated),
    changedBy,
    requestId,
  })

  return updated
}
```

## 4.2 Diff Helper

```typescript
function diffFields(before: Record<string, unknown>, after: Record<string, unknown>) {
  const changes: { field: string; old: unknown; new: unknown }[] = []
  for (const key of Object.keys(after)) {
    if (JSON.stringify(before[key]) !== JSON.stringify(after[key])) {
      changes.push({ field: key, old: before[key], new: after[key] })
    }
  }
  return changes
}
```

## 4.3 Bulk Insert

For efficiency, audit entries are batch-inserted. An update that changes 3 fields creates 3 audit_log rows in one INSERT.



# 5. Retention

## 5.1 Default: 30 Days

Audit records older than 30 days are automatically deleted by a daily cleanup job.

## 5.2 Configuration

Variable | Description | Default
AUDIT_RETENTION_DAYS | Days to keep audit records | 30
AUDIT_ENABLED | Enable/disable audit trail | true

## 5.3 Cleanup Job

A BullMQ recurring job runs daily at 3 AM (store timezone):

```sql
DELETE FROM audit_log WHERE changed_at < NOW() - INTERVAL '30 days'
```

## 5.4 Extended Retention

Stores requiring longer retention (compliance, legal) can set `AUDIT_RETENTION_DAYS=365` or higher. Storage impact is minimal (~36 MB/year).



# 6. Querying the Audit Trail

## 6.1 API Endpoints

GET /v1/audit?table=account&recordId={uuid}
- All changes to a specific record

GET /v1/audit?table=account&changedBy={userId}
- All changes by a specific user

GET /v1/audit?startDate=2026-03-01&endDate=2026-03-31
- All changes in a date range

GET /v1/audit?table=account&recordId={uuid}&field=name
- Changes to a specific field on a specific record

All endpoints require `users.admin` permission.

## 6.2 Admin UI

An "Audit Log" page in the admin panel:
- Searchable, filterable table
- Filter by: table, user, date range, record ID
- Click a record to see the full change history
- Each entry shows: timestamp, user, table, record, field, old → new value
- Export as CSV for compliance reports



# 7. What Gets Logged Per Action

## 7.1 Insert

One audit_log row with:
- action = 'insert'
- field_name = NULL
- old_value = NULL
- new_value = JSON of entire inserted record

## 7.2 Update

One audit_log row per changed field:
- action = 'update'
- field_name = the column name
- old_value = previous value
- new_value = new value

Unchanged fields are NOT logged.

## 7.3 Delete (soft)

One audit_log row with:
- action = 'delete'
- field_name = 'is_active'
- old_value = 'true'
- new_value = 'false'

## 7.4 Delete (hard)

One audit_log row with:
- action = 'delete'
- field_name = NULL
- old_value = JSON of deleted record
- new_value = NULL



# 8. Sensitive Field Masking

Some fields should not have their values stored in the audit trail:

Field | Masking
user.password_hash | Never logged. Action logged but old/new values are '***'
account_payment_method.processor_payment_method_id | Last 4 chars only
member_identifier.value | Masked except last 4 chars



# 9. Implementation Order

1. Create audit_log table and migration
2. Implement audit helper (diffFields, bulk insert)
3. Add to account and member services (highest traffic)
4. Add to tax exemption (compliance-sensitive)
5. Add to user management (security-sensitive)
6. Add retention cleanup BullMQ job
7. Add API endpoints for querying
8. Add admin UI page
9. Add to remaining domain services as they're built



# 10. Business Rules

- Audit records are append-only — never updated or manually deleted
- Retention cleanup is the only deletion mechanism
- All audit queries are company-scoped (multi-tenant isolation)
- System operations (migrations, seeds) log with changed_by = NULL
- Bulk operations (imports, batch updates) are audited per-record
- Password and payment token fields are masked in audit values
- Audit trail must not impact request latency — inserts are batched and non-blocking where possible
- The audit_log table itself is NOT audited (prevents infinite recursion)
