Cursor Pagination and Strategy Selection

Cursor Pagination & Strategy Selection Understand feed-style pagination and choose it for the right product interaction

Phase 15 - Filtering, Search, Sorting & Pagination Volume 04 - Professional Backend

Architecture milestone

Product navigation need

v

Offset or cursor

v

Stable traversal

Phase 15 turns an unbounded collection endpoint into a validated, queryable, stable, paginated API contract.

Cursor pagination solves a different product problem Cursor pagination resumes after a known record instead of asking the database to skip N previous rows. It is often a better fit for feeds, infinite scroll, exports, and very deep traversal.

Requirement Offset Cursor

Jump directly to page 42 Excellent Poor fit

Infinite scroll Works but can get expensive Excellent

Human-readable page numbers Excellent Not natural

Very deep traversal Can degrade Usually stronger

Stable under frequent inserts Can shift Often more stable with correct cursor/order

Simple implementation Very simple Requires cursor strategy

// Concept-only example: cursor pagination needs a deliberately stable cursor strategy. // TaskFlow implements offset pagination first because the current UI uses page numbers.

const page = await prisma.task.findMany({ take: 20, cursor: cursorId ? { id: cursorId } : undefined, skip: cursorId ? 1 : 0, orderBy: { id: "asc" }, });

// Real production feeds often need a cursor aligned with the desired ordering. // With random UUID ids and createdAt ordering, design the cursor intentionally // instead of assuming offset and cursor pagination are interchangeable.

A cursor must align with ordering Do not copy a cursor example mechanically. If the product sorts by createdAt but the cursor is unrelated to that order, boundary behavior can become surprising. A robust feed normally uses an order and cursor strategy that together define one stable traversal, often including a unique tiebreaker.

Figure 1 - Pagination decision

Does UI need numbered pages / direct jumps?

v

Yes -> offset is reasonable

v

No -> is traversal/feed very deep?

v

Yes -> design cursor pagination

v

Measure real behavior and workload

Choose from product interaction and dataset behavior, not from fashion.

TaskFlow choice

The current TaskFlow Tasks screen is an administrative collection, so Phase 15 implements offset pagination. Cursor pagination remains part of your engineering toolbox for later feeds and exports.