Add keyless REST PUT/PATCH support for entities with auto-generated primary keys by aaronburtle · Pull Request #3150 · Azure/data-api-builder

aaronburtle · 2026-02-21T01:05:09Z

Why make this change?

One test change to help the pipeline pass relates to #2992

What is this change?

Add keyless REST PUT/PATCH support for entities with auto-generated primary keys

When a PUT or PATCH request arrives without a primary key in the URL route, the operation is converted to an Insert, reusing the existing insert pipeline. This enables creation of records on entities with identity/auto-generated keys where callers don't know the key value upfront. The original keyed PUT/PATCH routes are unchanged.

In RestService.ExecuteAsync, keyless Upsert/UpsertIncremental operations are detected early and remapped to Insert before authorization and request context creation. Authorization is unaffected since the RestAuthorizationHandler resolves permissions from the HTTP method directly, and PUT/PATCH already require both Create and Update permissions.
In OpenApiDocumentor, keyless PUT and PATCH operations are now documented for entities with auto-generated primary keys on the base entity path. These use the _NoAutoPK request body schema and only advertise 201 Created responses. A missing AddQueryParameters helper method was also added.
Stored procedure entities are unaffected. No changes to the mutation engine, query builders, or database interaction layer.

How was this tested?

We modify existing tests to match the new behavior, and then add a test for keyless PUT/PATCH.

Sample Request(s)

PUT /api/Book

{
    "title": "My New Book",
    "publisher_id": 1234
}

PATCH /api/Book
{
    "title": "Another New Book",
    "publisher_id": 5678
}

These will convert to Insert

aaronburtle · 2026-02-24T19:07:28Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-02-24T19:07:53Z

Azure Pipelines successfully started running 6 pipeline(s).

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR adds support for keyless REST PUT and PATCH operations on entities with auto-generated primary keys. When a PUT or PATCH request arrives without a primary key in the URL route, the operation is converted to an Insert, enabling record creation for entities with identity/auto-generated keys where the caller doesn't know the key value beforehand.

Changes:

Converts keyless PUT/PATCH operations to Insert in RestService.ExecuteAsync before request processing
Adds keyless PUT/PATCH operation documentation in OpenAPI for entities with auto-generated primary keys
Updates tests to reflect new behavior and adds comprehensive test coverage for keyless operations

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 10 out of 10 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/Core/Services/RestService.cs	Adds logic to convert Upsert/UpsertIncremental to Insert when primary key route is empty
src/Core/Services/OpenAPI/OpenApiDocumentor.cs	Documents keyless PUT/PATCH operations for entities with auto-generated PKs using _NoAutoPK schema
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Put/PutApiTestBase.cs	Adds test for keyless PUT with auto-gen PK, updates existing tests, adds If-Match header test
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Put/PostgreSqlPutApiTests.cs	Adds SQL query for keyless PUT test verification
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Put/MySqlPutApiTests.cs	Adds SQL query for keyless PUT test verification
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Put/MsSqlPutApiTests.cs	Adds SQL query for keyless PUT test verification
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Patch/PatchApiTestBase.cs	Adds test for keyless PATCH with auto-gen PK, updates existing tests, removes unused using statement
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Patch/PostgreSqlPatchApiTests.cs	Adds SQL query for keyless PATCH test verification
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Patch/MySqlPatchApiTests.cs	Adds SQL query for keyless PATCH test verification
src/Service.Tests/SqlTests/RestApiTests/Patch/MsSqlPatchApiTests.cs	Adds SQL query for keyless PATCH test verification

aaronburtle · 2026-02-24T21:54:50Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-02-24T21:55:14Z

Azure Pipelines successfully started running 6 pipeline(s).

JerryNixon · 2026-02-24T22:09:05Z

src/Core/Services/RestService.cs

+            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(primaryKeyRoute) &&
+                (operationType is EntityActionOperation.Upsert ||
+                 operationType is EntityActionOperation.UpsertIncremental))
+            {


The conversion to Insert is not gated by “auto-generated PK”. Should it?

Good question, this is OK because our RequestValidator will handle the validation side of things and we keep a clean separation of responsibility.

This is indeed a good question. @aaronburtle, I checked with Copilot, and it says "So: autogenerated PKs do not bypass the URL [primaryKeyRoute] requirement for update/upsert/delete. For insert, a URL PK is disallowed regardless, in [RequestValidator.cs:224-232].

public void ValidatePrimaryKey(RestRequestContext context) see this function.

You need to fix the exception that we throw there, in cases of Patch/Put to not check for existence of primaryKey in the route if they are autogenerated.

This is indeed a good question. @aaronburtle, I checked with Copilot, and it says "So: autogenerated PKs do not bypass the URL [primaryKeyRoute] requirement for update/upsert/delete. For insert, a URL PK is disallowed regardless, in [RequestValidator.cs:224-232].

public void ValidatePrimaryKey(RestRequestContext context) see this function.

You need to fix the exception that we throw there, in cases of Patch/Put to not check for existence of primaryKey in the route if they are autogenerated.

We should be OK, because we are changing the Patch/Put to an insert operation already in RestService

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(primaryKeyRoute) && (operationType is EntityActionOperation.Upsert || operationType is EntityActionOperation.UpsertIncremental)) { operationType = EntityActionOperation.Insert; }

And then when we do the validation on lines 224-232 of RequestValidator we expect there to be no Primary Key, so keyless Put Patch should be fine, since we've converted to insert and then have the right behavior

case EntityActionOperation.Insert: if (!isPrimaryKeyRouteEmpty) { throw new DataApiBuilderException( message: PRIMARY_KEY_INVALID_USAGE_ERR_MESSAGE, statusCode: HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, subStatusCode: DataApiBuilderException.SubStatusCodes.BadRequest); }

looks like the conversion to Insert operation happens before we do the Request Validation. In that case, we should be ok with validation. But, then we should be doing the conversion to Insert only when the PKs are autogenerated. Otherwise, we should NOT convert into Insert and continue to throw the exception.

I think we want this behavior because they could include the PKs in the body of the request, in which case we should still be able to do the insert. The logic would be to convert to Insert even for non auto-gen, then the Insert validation logic applies, and if it is non-auto-gen it must include the keys in the body, and only if those keys are missing from the body as well, we would throw.

I know this is effectively going beyond the scope of this underlying issue, however, we get this additional functionality for free just by letting the request validator handle the insert op, so seems worth it.

So after speaking offline we have identified the correct behavior we want, will provide it here for clarity.

In a truly keyless PUT/PATCH, we will convert to insert op, that means no key in URL, no key in body. The Insert validation will just work in this case. It will succeed if we are auto-gen, and fail if we are not. This will require identifying when we have keys in the body when the URL is missing keys.

For PUT/PATCH where the URL is keyless, but we have the keys in the body, we want to use Upsert semantics, so we will not convert to an insert. This will require new validation logic.

aaronburtle · 2026-02-24T23:54:36Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-02-24T23:55:02Z

Azure Pipelines successfully started running 6 pipeline(s).

src/Core/Services/OpenAPI/OpenApiDocumentor.cs

Aniruddh25

RequestValidator needs to be relaxed for Put/Patch operations when primary key subroute is not found and it is autogenerated.

aaronburtle · 2026-02-26T20:02:32Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-02-26T20:02:57Z

Azure Pipelines successfully started running 6 pipeline(s).

aaronburtle · 2026-02-26T20:18:35Z

/azp run

azure-pipelines · 2026-02-26T20:18:59Z

Azure Pipelines successfully started running 6 pipeline(s).

Aniruddh25 · 2026-02-26T22:00:39Z

src/Service.Tests/Configuration/Telemetry/AzureLogAnalyticsTests.cs

-        await Task.Delay(2000);
+        // Poll until the log appears (the flusher service needs time to dequeue and upload)
+        int maxWaitMs = 10000;
+        int pollIntervalMs = 100;


why start with such a low pollIntervalMs if the original delay was 2000ms? Perhaps start with that.

aaronburtle added 4 commits February 20, 2026 14:58

update docs

2e65430

add MsSql test support

0696d6f

update tests

9afa09f

Merge branch 'main' into dev/aaronburtle/AddIdentityKeySupportForPatch

bff31ce

aaronburtle marked this pull request as ready for review February 24, 2026 21:47

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 24, 2026 21:47

aaronburtle requested review from Alekhya-Polavarapu, Aniruddh25, JerryNixon, RubenCerna2079, anushakolan, rusamant, sourabh1007, souvikghosh04, stuartpa and vadeveka as code owners February 24, 2026 21:47

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of aaronburtle February 24, 2026 21:48 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Feb 24, 2026

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JerryNixon approved these changes Feb 24, 2026

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fix failing tests

e89741c

Aniruddh25 reviewed Feb 26, 2026

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src/Core/Services/OpenAPI/OpenApiDocumentor.cs Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

Aniruddh25 requested changes Feb 26, 2026

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aaronburtle added 2 commits February 26, 2026 11:56

address comments

37094ec

help pipeline to pass

dc1b95a

aaronburtle added 2 commits February 26, 2026 12:17

Merge branch 'main' into dev/aaronburtle/AddIdentityKeySupportForPatch

ea37d0f

Merge branch 'main' into dev/aaronburtle/AddIdentityKeySupportForPatch

af7d0eb

Aniruddh25 reviewed Feb 26, 2026

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aaronburtle commented Feb 21, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Why make this change?

What is this change?

Add keyless REST PUT/PATCH support for entities with auto-generated primary keys

How was this tested?

Sample Request(s)

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aaronburtle commented Feb 21, 2026 •

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