Bug: document autosave fires on every keystroke with no debounce, causes Supabase write storm

[anshul23102]

Bug Report: Autosave on Every Keystroke Exceeds Supabase Free-Tier Write Limits

Description

The document editor triggers an autosave to Supabase on every onChange event
from the text editor component : effectively on every keystroke. A user typing
at 60 WPM generates approximately 300 keystrokes per minute, each triggering
a separate Supabase UPDATE call. The Supabase free tier allows 500MB database
egress and 2 million rows read/written per month. A single active user typing
for one hour exhausts a significant fraction of the monthly write quota.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open the Supabase dashboard and navigate to Database > Logs.
2. Start typing in the Draftdeckai document editor.
3. Observe a new UPDATE documents SET ... query for each keystroke.
4. After 1 minute of typing, check that ~300 write operations have been logged.

Root Cause

The onChange callback calls supabase.from('documents').update(...) directly
without debouncing. No minimum interval is enforced between saves.

Impact

Heavy users exhaust the Supabase free-tier write quota within days, causing
the database to return errors and making the editor non-functional until the
quota resets.

Proposed Fix

Debounce the autosave call with a 2-second delay:

const debouncedSave = useMemo(
  () => debounce(async (content: string) => {
    await supabase.from("documents").update({ content }).eq("id", docId);
  }, 2000),
  [docId]
);

// In editor onChange:
onChange={(value) => {
  setContent(value);
  debouncedSave(value);
}}

Also add a visual "Saving..." indicator that clears to "Saved" after the
debounced call completes.

[anshul23102]

@Muneerali199 Hi! I came across this issue and I would love to work on it as part of GSSoC '26.

I have reviewed the problem description carefully and am confident I can deliver a well-tested, production-ready fix within the contribution timeline. Please let me know if you need any additional context or have specific implementation preferences before I get started.

Could you please assign this issue to me?

/assign
/claim

[aaniya22]

pls assign this to me under gssoc

[anshul23102]

Hi @Muneerali199, before implementing I traced every save/autosave path that touches the documents table (or its /api/documents/* routes) to find the reported per-keystroke autosave. I couldn't find one, and wanted to share what I checked rather than submit a fix for behavior I can't reproduce:

• components/documents/document-editor.tsx: handleSectionEdit/handleUpdateSectionTitle (the section-editing onChange handlers) only call setEditedSections/setOutlineSections, local React state. The only call to PUT /api/documents/:id is in handleSave, wired to an explicit Save button (line 534), not to any onChange.
• app/editor/page.tsx: autosave exists but is already interval-based, setInterval(() => handleSave(), 30000) (line 187-188), not per-keystroke.
• app/editor/[type]/[id]/page.tsx: same pattern, setInterval(() => handleSave(), 30000) (line 204-210), with an additional guard that skips the write entirely if the serialized canvas content hasn't changed since the last save (line 151-153).
• app/resume-editor/resume-editor-content.tsx and components/resume-templates/EditableResume.tsx: field onChange handlers only update local state; saving is button-triggered (handleSave).

I also checked more broadly for any onChange/onInput/onKeyUp anywhere in app/ or components/ that calls fetch or a Supabase client method directly (i.e. unthrottled), found none.

Worth noting: lib/performance-optimizer.ts already exports a useDebouncedCallback hook, but it isn't imported/used anywhere in the codebase currently, so if there is a per-keystroke save path I've missed, that hook would be the natural fix to wire in (matching the issue's proposed pattern).

Could you point me to the specific editor/component where you're seeing this in the Supabase logs? Happy to dig further and implement the debounce once I can locate the actual call site, didn't want to guess and open a PR touching the wrong file.