Establish what is happening
State the ordering rule
Write the field or fields, ascending or descending direction, null placement, case or locale behavior, type conversion, and deterministic tie-breaker. Note whether users expect event time, update time, rank, or a business sequence. Preserve the request and view context.
Find the first inversion
Inspect neighboring records around the first pair that violates the rule. Compare raw values, parsed types, null state, normalized values, and displayed text. Check ties and page boundaries separately, since an apparent inversion may come from unstable pagination.
Bound affected views
Recheck lists, exports, reports, and downstream traversals using the same ordering definition. Group inversions by source, field, value type, date window, and processing revision. Record whether the order is consistently wrong, intermittently unstable, or only differs in presentation.
What to carry forward
Deliver an ordering scope brief with the expected rule, first inversion, boundary values, affected consumers, and stability limits. Triage stops when the violation is reproducible from recorded inputs. Keep tie or locale behavior unresolved when the contract does not define a deterministic comparison.
Keep the decision with the work.
Use a Work Item in Aglet to record the problem, the evidence you have, and the next decision. Add an owner and priority, then keep updates in the discussion so the next person can follow the reasoning.
Create an account See the product workflow