⚡ Bolt: In-place dictionary updates for JSON file repository

.jules/bolt.md

@@ -13,3 +13,7 @@
 ## 2024-03-16 - Batch JSON File I/O Operations
 **Learning:** When using JSON file-backed repositories, iterating over items sequentially and calling `save_item` or `record_attempt` inside a loop leads to N+1 file read/write operations. This creates a significant performance bottleneck, especially when importing progress snapshots with numerous items and attempts.
 **Action:** Prefer batch processing methods (e.g., `save_items`, `record_attempts`) so file-backed adapters can load storage once, update it in memory, and write it back in a single pass.
+
+## 2024-05-14 - Batch operations on JSON file-backed adapters
+**Learning:** In JSON file-backed adapters (like JsonFilePracticeRepository), `save_items` performs O(N) deserialization and serialization of all stored items on every call. This creates a severe performance bottleneck when dealing with large repositories.
+**Action:** When performing in-place dictionary updates for batch operations, update the raw dictionary entries in-place rather than fully deserializing and reserializing all stored records to domain models. This prevents O(N) CPU/memory penalties.

src/python_learning_orchestrated/adapters/json_file_practice_repository.py

@@ -46,15 +46,24 @@ def save_items(self, items: list[LearningItem]) -> None:
 
         storage = self._load_storage()
         raw_items = storage.get("items", [])
-        existing_items = []
-        if isinstance(raw_items, list):
-            existing_items = [
-                _item_from_dict(entry) for entry in raw_items if isinstance(entry, dict)
-            ]
-        by_id = {existing.id: existing for existing in existing_items}
-        for item in items:
-            by_id[item.id] = item
-        storage["items"] = [_item_to_dict(entry) for entry in by_id.values()]
+        if not isinstance(raw_items, list):
+            raw_items = []
+
+        storage["items"] = raw_items
+
+        # Update items in-place to avoid O(N) deserialization of the entire repository
+        items_to_update = {str(item.id): item for item in items}
+        for i, entry in enumerate(raw_items):
+            if not isinstance(entry, dict):
+                continue
+
+            entry_id = str(entry.get("id"))
+            if entry_id in items_to_update:
+                raw_items[i] = _item_to_dict(items_to_update.pop(entry_id))
+
+        for item in items_to_update.values():
+            raw_items.append(_item_to_dict(item))
+
         self._save_storage(storage)
 
     def list_attempts(self) -> list[Attempt]: